Superwomen of Eva 2: Emerald Courage
by Mike313
Summary: Misato always wished that there was some way she could fight the Angels herself, instead of through the children. She had no idea that the power would practically fall into her lap, or that it would come in the form of a little green ring.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Prologue: **Emerald Twilight, Emerald Dawn

"Give it up, old man," sneered the man in yellow. "Your time is over."

Abin Sur looked up at his enemy. The Green Lantern of Sector 2814 was in a bad position. When he had heeded the distress beacon coming from the lifeless rock at the very edge of this solar system, he had never once imagined that it would be a trap set by one of Sinestro's newest disciples.

And even if he had suspected he would find an enemy here, he never would have guessed who it would be.

"My son," Abin spoke softly, "it doesn't have to be this way."

"Yes it does!" Amon Sur snapped. "_You_ made it so it had to be this way! If you'd ever been there, this could have been avoided! But your precious _corps_ was always more important to you! And without you, I was left to find my own light. And I have."

He lifted up his fist, displaying the power ring he wore, yellow light shining from it. It was a small thing, but both men knew it was immensely powerful.

It was also very similar and yet very, very different from the one Abin wore.

"I am deeply sorry to hear that, my son," the older man said slowly, his green ring lighting up in answer to his son's.

Despite how grim his situation was and how gruesome the injuries he'd already sustained were, the Green Lantern forced himself back to his feet. If he was to die, he would do so standing on his own two feet and fighting till his last breath.

"But I am a Green Lantern, and I cannot allow one who worships evil's might such as you to defeat me," Abin said resolutely. "Even if you are my own son."

The young Sinestro Corps member shook his head. "How noble," he sneered, "and yet how utterly futile."

The ring on his finger flared brightly and then spat out a hailstorm of knives made from yellow light. Abin reacted on instinct, focusing his mind and will reflexively. A beam of green light shot out from his own ring, materializing into a large shield.

But it was useless; the yellow impurity, perhaps the greatest weakness of one of the most powerful weapons in the universe, held fast. His shield failed to so much as slow the luminous knives down, and Abin released a cry of agony as the blades easily pierced his force field and left deep lacerations and punctures all across his body.

In spite of his best efforts, Abin Sur again sank to his knees.

"Tell me, Father, are the icy fingers of fear starting to curl around your heart?" Amon taunted. "Does panic grip you as you realize that death is nigh?"

Abin looked up at his foe defiantly. "Those who wear the rings of Oa know no fear."

With these words, Abin unleashed an enormous blast of energy from his ring, the most powerful, brute force attack he could will into being. His enemy just smirked and erected a shield of yellow light, knowing it would protect him regardless of how powerful the Green Lantern's attack was.

Pity that the young Sinestro Corpsman wasn't Abin's target.

Instead, the burst of emerald light crashed into the great, jagged spire of stone behind him, creating an instant rockslide. The younger man screamed, realizing too late his enemy's intentions. Amon raised his fist, his ring aglow with its terrible power, but he was not fast enough. He was completely buried under a tidal wave of rock.

Abin Sur's face scrunched together as he warded off tears. It was one final victory in the eternal fight for order and justice, but at such a terrible cost.

With great difficulty, the Green Lantern made his way back to his ship, applying pressure to the worst of his wounds on the way in a mostly futile effort to staunch the bleeding.

_It is fortunate, I suppose, that sentimentality has made me use this vessel, for I am in no shape to fly without it,_ he mused.

"Ring," he spoke as he finally collapsed into the pilot's seat of his star ship, "what is the nearest world to here that is inhabited by sentient life forms?"

_"The planet Earth is located approximately six light years from your current position,"_ his power ring answered. _"Coordinates are as follows…"_

Abin Sur punched the coordinates his ring gave him into his ship's auto-pilot, and soon he was soaring away from this place that one of his sworn enemies had tried to make his grave.

His space vessel made the jump to transluminal space just as Amon Sur exploded out of the mountain of broken rocks, murder blazing in his yellow eyes.

* * *

Misato Katsuragi was feeling seriously disturbed as she drove back to her apartment from NERV headquarters, so much so that she was actually obeying the traffic laws as she went.

Anyone who knew her usual driving habits would have immediately demanded to know who she was and what she'd done with the real Misato had they seen her now, but fortunately she was alone. The simple fact of the matter was that too much of her mind was mulling over recent events for her to pull off her usual insane road stunts.

She just couldn't stop thinking about the recent mission to Mount Asuma.

"Captain Katsuragi, have you forgotten that there's a human being in there?" Makoto's appalled voice whispered from her memory.

"Shut up, Hyuga," she growled. "Why did you ever have to open your damn mouth?"

The truth was, she probably would never have given her decisions at the volcano a second thought if the technician hadn't spoken up. Asuka had agreed with her, and Shinji hadn't had the nerve to say anything to make her scrutinize her actions.

But Makoto, damn him, had made her realize that she was ordering a teenager be lowered ever further into _boiling hot lava_.

The German could be a brat sometimes…okay, most of the time, but that didn't give Misato the right to gamble with her life for the sake of getting her revenge. Indeed, Asuka was Misato's responsibility twice over, since she was both commanding officer and guardian to the redhead.

Thinking about it further, she realized that it didn't bother her so much that she'd made the decision that she had. What really bothered her was that the fact she was endangering the life of a child hadn't even entered into the mental calculus she'd used to reach said decision.

Ignoring factors like that could make someone commanding a battle unduly reckless, she knew.

And for what? An organization she knew was keeping all kinds of secrets from her? For some feeling of satisfaction that she knew merely commanding the battles against the Angels didn't give her?

Clearly, making these issues go away was going to require Yebisu. A _lot_ of Yebisu.

She was so fixated on her thoughts that she didn't immediately notice it when she took a turn which would _not_ bring her back to her apartment. Frowning, the Ops Director tried to correct her course, but she found herself unable to turn the wheel the way she wanted.

Misato then glanced down at her hands…and gasped as she realized that they were both enveloped in an aura of green light.

"What the hell?!" she exclaimed.

_"Misato Katsuragi," _spoke a flat, otherworldly voice that seemed to come from all around her. _"You have been chosen."_

"Chosen? Chosen for what?!" she demanded.

No answer came, and Misato tried desperately to wrest control of her hands, and control of her car along with them.

It was no use, however. The green light had an iron grip on her, and she couldn't even take her hands off the steering wheel. She soon discovered that the same light had also taken control of her feet, and with them, the pedals. She was powerless, a passenger in the driver's seat of her own car.

"Let me go!" Misato shouted defiantly as she continued to struggle. "Damn it! I never thought I'd be fighting an Angel like this!"

It was an incorrect, but understandable assumption.

The Ops Director was forced to drive her car to the outskirts of the city, cursing and resisting futilely the whole way. When at last she was in a fairly isolated spot, the green light that bound her then forced her to turn her car's motor off and step outside the vehicle.

"Okay, now what?" she demanded irritably.

A moment later she wished that she'd kept her big mouth shut. The green light that imprisoned her hands and feet abruptly left her extremities and forced a perfect sphere of emerald light around her, trapping her. The Ops Director beat her fists against the walls, but it was like punching solid stone.

She briefly considered drawing her gun and trying to shoot her way out, but the chance of the bullet ricocheting around her emerald prison and killing her seemed too great.

The sphere lifted into the air and flew off, away from the city and civilization in general. Misato nearly fell thanks to the force of inertia, and only managed to avoid an undignified tumble by leaning against the side of the sphere.

With a sigh of resignation, the purple haired woman finally decided to cease her futile resistance for the moment. She sat down, waiting for this thing to arrive at its destination.

_At least it's fast,_ she thought, observing the way the landscape blurred by.

After a few moments had passed, the green sphere slowed and then stopped, well away from any sign of civilization. Indeed, the only thing not created by nature so far away from any city or town was some kind of bullet shaped vessel which had crashed to the earth and created a long trench in the ground as it had done so.

_Okay, maybe this isn't the Angels I'm dealing with here,_ Misato thought.

The sphere deposited Misato on the ground near the crashed vessel, then broke apart, the light which had composed it again grabbing hold of her hands and feet. This time, however, she didn't fight it, too curious about the space ship.

The Operations Director pried open a hatch on the side of the ruined vessel and carefully stepped inside, prodded on by the green light the entire way.

Seated upon the only chair in the little shuttle was a man surrounded by a halo of green light. He was dressed in a form fitting, black and green outfit that had a simple emblem on the chest which consisted of a circle with a horizontal line on the top and bottom.

Yet the two things Misato noticed first were the numerous wounds all over his body that oozed purplish blood, and the almost brick red hue of his skin—not a skin color that normal humans had.

"Greetings," the man said, looking up at her.

Misato barely hid her reaction when she saw his eyes; instead of corneas and pupils, this being had only glowing green circles of light.

"My apologies for summonsing you here in this manner, but I couldn't go to you," he said.

A ring of luminescent green metal on his hand pulsed with emerald light, and Misato's bonds vanished. She noticed that the strange glow left his eyes once he'd done this, turning them into a normal but piercingly green pair of eyes.

"Who are you? Are you all right?" she blurted out at once.

The man smiled weakly for a moment before grimacing in pain. "I'm dying," he said bluntly. "As for my identity, I am Abin Sur, the Green Lantern of this sector."

"Green Lantern?" Misato asked.

"We are a corps of officers drawn from all sentient races of the universe, selected one and all for our ability to overcome great fear," he said. "We are tasked by the Guardians of the Universe with enforcing order and justice throughout the cosmos. A Green Lantern is empowered by the ring, which is one of the most formidable weapons in the universe. The power ring is fueled by the wielder's willpower. It can make your thoughts and wishes a reality."

"And what does this have to do with me?" Misato asked, even though she had a sinking feeling that she already knew.

"You, Misato Katsuragi, have been chosen by the ring to become my successor," Abin answered. "To serve in the corps is a great honor. Do you accept this duty?"

"No, oh no," Misato said at once, holding her hands up in a warding gesture. "I already have a crazy job with incredible responsibilities. I can't possibly…"

"Haven't you ever watched powerlessly as an injustice was being committed, or seen a tragedy unfolding, and wished that you could _do something_ about it?" Abin asked.

Misato couldn't even pretend that she hadn't. She had seen too many terrible disasters and things that were just plain _wrong_ during her life, not the least of which was the way NERV and she herself sent children off to war against the Angels.

"Yes," she said softly.

"As the Green Lantern, there will never be a wrong greater than your power to make things right," Abin promised.

Misato was silent for a long time, just staring at the slowly guttering Green Lantern as she considered.

On the one hand, the idea of accepting this offer seemed nothing short of insane. She had nothing to go on about this power ring but Abin Sur's word, and really, her life was more than insane enough already without the addition of some alien artifact.

On the other hand, though…

_The most formidable weapons in the universe, _Misato thought. _How can I turn down something that might help humanity defeat the Angels?_

She realized that if she turned down the ring, and then Shinji—or either of the other EVA pilots, for that matter—died in combat, then she would never forgive herself.

"All right," she said. "I accept."

Abin Sur smiled faintly. "Good," he said. He pressed a button on the arm of his chair, and a small compartment near Misato slid open. "Take that. You'll…need it."

Misato reached into the compartment and withdrew what looked like an old fashioned lantern. Appropriately enough, it was made entirely out of green metal, similar to that of the ring.

"What is it?" she asked.

"A power battery," Abin answered, coughing wetly. "The ring cannot…hold an infinite charge. You must recharge it periodically…with that."

"I see," Misato said, though she wasn't at all sure if she did or not. "Is there anything else I should know about?"

"The yellow impurity," Abin Sur said, his voice becoming softer and softer with each passing moment. "The ring's power cannot directly affect anything...colored yellow."

"Is that all?" Misato asked, silently wondering how many more strings were attached to this power ring.

"No, but those are the most important things," Abin said, a hint of amusement in his expression, as though he'd read her mind. "The ring itself can...tell you the rest of what you need to know."

"It's alive?" Misato asked, eyes widening.

Abin shook his head. "Ask it questions, and it will answer. It may also offer you advice at times," he said, "but it has no will of its own."

Misato nodded. "I understand."

"Good," Abin gasped out.

He gestured for her to approach him. She did, and the Green Lantern removed his power ring. Immediately, the halo of green light that surrounded him winked out, and his eyes became dark blue instead of green.

"Here," Abin said, holding out the ring, his voice no more than a whisper now.

Misato held out her hand, and Abin Sur placed the ring within her palm and then closed her fingers around it. "Good luck, Green Lantern," he said. "Be fearless in your pursuit of justice."

His final task at last completed, Abin Sur leaned back in his chair, a trace of a smile appearing on his face. "A human. I never thought I'd see the day," he whispered, then he seemed to sober and added. "I am sorry, Amon."

With that, Abin Sur, one of the most respected Green Lanterns who ever lived and the protector Sector 2814 for over a century, released one last, shuddering breath and died.

* * *

A few minutes later found Misato standing outside the crashed space ship, feeling almost numb from everything that had just happened, the power ring still clutched her fist.

She opened her palm, then picked up the ring. However, she didn't immediately don it. Instead, she inspected it closely. It was a rather bulky thing, similar in shape and size to a class ring one might purchase from a university upon graduation. Except that on top, in place of large stone, was the same symbol Abin Sur had worn on his chest. That was the emblem of the Green Lanterns, she supposed.

_C'mon, Misato,_ she thought to herself, _you're not going to accomplish anything by just standing here._

Taking a deep breath, she slipped it onto the middle finger of her right hand.

Immediately, a corona of emerald light surrounded Misato Katsuragi's form, the bright shine heralding the dawn of a new Green Lantern. She opened her mouth to let out a cry of surprise, but no sound came out.

_"MISATO KATSURAGI OF EARTH," _the ring spoke in that same flat, otherworldly voice she had heard earlier, _"YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO OVERCOME GREAT FEAR."_

What looked like green flames washed over her body, not hurting her in the slightest but sweeping away her NERV uniform, leaving a form fitting black and green uniform befitting a member of the Corps in its place.

_"WELCOME TO THE GREEN LANTERN CORPS."_

After several seconds, the light subsided, leaving Misato panting and staring down at the green ring on her finger.

_What a rush!_ She thought.

"Okay," she finally spoke after several moments had passed. "Ring, how do I use you?"

* * *

Author's Notes: First of all, a big thanks to orionpax09 for giving me leave to write a second Superwomen of Eva series. The idea of a DC-based SOE series has been rattling around in my head for months now, and I'm glad to be doing it. For those who may be wondering, I've picked out powers for all of the canon Eva girls, except, ironically, Hikari. If anybody would like to throw me an idea for which hero she should be, I'd be glad to listen.

Now, for notes on the story itself. For those who don't follow the Green Lantern comics, I hope I haven't confused you with this. If I have, however, don't worry; you get to learn along with Misato what being a GL is about.

Fellow Green Lantern fans will note that I'm playing with the mythos very loosely, as Abin Sur died long before Sinestro formed his corps. Also, I don't believe Abin and Amon ever fought one another. In my first draft, Abin was fighting a random Sinestro Corpsman, but as this is an Eva fic, a clash of a father and his son seemed kind of appropriate.

I have to say, Misato as the Green Lantern strikes me as the best fit I've made when it comes to matching Eva women with DC heroes. She's a lot like Hal Jordan when you think about it. They both have major issues relating to their fathers' deaths (though admittedly Hal's aren't as bad, since his feelings regarding his father are quite unambiguous). They're both also brave to the point that one might occasionally wonder if they're a little nuts, and they _cannot_ bring themselves to ever surrender. And, in _Secret Origin_, Hal struck me as being at least somewhat self-destructive, and Misato definitely has her own self-destructive tendencies, such as her drinking.

It also doesn't hurt that Green Lantern is probably my favorite comic book, and Misato is the only Eva woman I could see being given a ring. Really, Asuka is the only other one I could _maybe_ see getting one, and then only because she reactivated Unit Two in EoE with seemingly nothing but _sheer willpower_.

But I've rambled for too long (sorry, I'm excited about this new project, and this story in particular). So, as always, thanks to my readers and reviewers.

* * *

Omake

Dirty Old Man

_"MISATO KATSURAGI OF EARTH," _the ring spoke in that same flat, otherworldly voice it had used earlier, _"YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO OVERCOME GREAT FEAR."_

What looked like green flames washed over her form, not hurting her in the slightest but sweeping away her NERV uniform, leaving her…completely nude.

"Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps!"

Misato gasped and turned toward the direction of the ship, finding Abin Sur standing there, looking perfectly fine and gazing at her lecherously.

"You damn hentai!" she shouted.

A jet of green light suddenly shot out of the ring, forming a giant mallet. Abin gulped. "I _knew_ there was a flaw in this plan…" he mused as the hammer came down.


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter One: **Field Test

"Ring, how do I use you?" Misato asked.

She felt rather stupid speaking to a ring, even though knew it could speak, but she had _no idea_ what she'd gotten herself into, so she had little choice but to ask her one source of information.

_"This ring is capable of forming energy blasts, force fields, and constructs of whatever tool or weapon you desire,"_ the ring answered. _"You need only picture it in your mind and will it to life. This ring also accepts verbal commands."_

"Verbal commands," Misato echoed. "Okay, that sounds pretty easy."

She decided that her first order of business should be burying Abin Sur and his ship. She didn't really know the man, but he definitely deserved better than just being left out in the open to rot. And while she didn't know what would happen if the space ship was discovered by NERV or the Japanese government, Misato somehow she suspected that she didn't want to find out.

She pointed her fist at the ground next to the ruined space ship, and said, "Ring, make a hole in the ground there."

A tremendous blast of green energy exploded forth from the ring, slamming into the ground and sending dirt spraying left and right. Misato let out a cry of surprise, and she reflexively braced her body for a jolt of recoil that never came.

Then it ended, and Misato found herself staring at trench in the ground that was easily twenty feet deep and twenty-five feet long. A thin stream of green smoke rose from the top of her new ring.

"Holy crap," Misato whispered.

Then she heard a low creaking sound and looked at the space ship. It was sitting right on the very edge of the great trench she'd just created, and it was starting to tilt, she realized.

_Uh-oh…_

With a crash, the ship went tumbling down into the trench, the already busted up vessel further falling to pieces from the spill. Misato winced; she'd hoped to give Abin Sur a more dignified burial than that.

"Uh, sorry," she called down to dead Green Lantern.

_"It is highly recommended that new recruits report to the planet Oa for training,"_ the ring spoke, sounding about as condescending as it was able, Misato suspected. _"Should this ring take you there?"_

She scowled down at it. "No."

_"Attempting to fulfill the duties of a Green Lantern without proper training is inadvisab—"_

"No," she snapped. "I can't go to some alien boot camp. I have kids to take care of, and an Angel could show up while I'm there. Heck, an Angel would _probably_ show up while I was there, with the way the war's been going."

The ring didn't make any further attempts to persuade her, for which she was grateful. Then she shook her head.

_I am arguing with a piece of jewelry,_ she realized. _That's a new low even for you, Katsuragi._

She sighed, then turned to look down at the space ship. Now all she had to do was fill in the hole.

"Probably easier said than done," she muttered to herself.

Then she almost laughed at the irony of her words, because she _could_ fill up the hole just by saying it—she only had to order the ring to do it.

After what had happened when she'd ordered the ring to make the hole in the first place, however, she wasn't too keen on simply telling it to fill up the trench. Verbal commands apparently left a lot of wiggle room for the ring to interpret her orders in ways she didn't want.

She definitely had to try it the other way.

"Picture it in my mind and will it to life," Misato muttered to herself.

The new Green Lantern envisioned a great pair of hands appearing and pushing all the dirt she'd displaced back into the hole, covering the ship up and hiding it forever from those who would desecrate the makeshift grave. Then she willed it to become real.

Two beams of emerald light shot out from the ring, each one forming a huge green hand. Misato gasped, and the constructs nearly flickered out of existence as her surprise caused her focus to waver. Then they solidified again and got to work, pushing great mounds of earth back where they belonged. In seconds, the trench was completely filled again, and Misato allowed the hands to vanish.

"Okay, good," Misato said, feeling satisfied with her work. "Now all I have to do is get back to my car."

_"You are capable of flying with this ring."_

"Whoa, really?" Misato asked, her eyes widening.

_"Affirmative."_

Thinking about it, Misato supposed that it made sense. Abin Sur had managed to create that energy sphere and send her soaring through the air in it, so it wasn't surprising that she could fly now that she was the one wearing the ring. Still, the idea of flying…that was really something.

She grabbed the handle of her lantern power battery and picked it up, then she willed herself into the air.

A halo of green light surrounded her, and her feet slowly rose off the ground. She gaped at the ground as it grew further and further away from her. She had expected flying to be difficult, but this was easy!

A large, toothy grin slowly spread across her face. "This is _so_ cool," she said softly.

Misato just hovered in place for a moment, allowing a sense of child-like wonder to wash over her at how easy it was to throw off gravity's bonds with her new powers.

Then she started flying across the landscape at great speed, seeing the ground blur beneath her. She laughed delightedly as she soared through the sky, leaving a trail of emerald light behind her like the tail of comet.

"_Yatta!_" she shouted, indulging in a series of loops and twists.

She had wanted to be a pilot once, before Second Impact had shattered both the whole world and her life. She might still have pursed that career path, but she'd believed that she'd have a better chance at fighting the Angels if she was an officer in the army instead of a pilot in the air force, which had been in utter shambles following the great disaster.

Right now, she rather wished that she'd gone on to become a pilot anyway.

_Eh, it couldn't have compared to this,_ she thought. _And I probably would have gotten stuck in one of those clunky VTOLs anyway._

All too soon, she reached her car, which was still waiting patiently for her. She landed next to it and took off the ring, causing her new Green Lantern uniform to disappear in brief puff of green flames and leaving her once more in her NERV uniform. She then held lay the ring in her palm and regarded it for a few seconds.

Somehow she doubted that everything she did with this ring would be that pleasant, but that flight had been the most fun she'd had in months. It was better than driving her car at three times the posted speed limit any day of the week.

Unfortunately, it was time to return to Earth now. Misato pocketed the ring, then stored her power battery in the trunk of her car. This done, she got into the driver's seat and headed toward her apartment building as though everything was normal.

* * *

"I'm home!" she called as she walked into her apartment not much later.

Shinji, who was sitting at the kitchen table doing homework, looked up and smiled. "Welcome home," he said. "I didn't think that you were coming back so late. I was starting to get worried."

Misato felt both guilt and pleasure run through her. She was sorry to have worried him, but it was nice to have someone at home who _would_ worry about her. The period when the only one waiting for her at home was Pen-Pen had been far too long.

And sometimes she thought that damn bird could get at his food himself and didn't care all that much if she ever returned…

"Where's Asuka?" she asked.

"She went out somewhere, maybe with Hikari," Shinji answered as he began the process of clearing his books from the kitchen table.

Misato immediately doubted that the Second Child was with the class representative; Hikari probably wouldn't have been up for going out, since it was a school night. Speaking of that, the redhead had probably bolted post haste when she'd realized that Misato was coming back late; Asuka knew only too well that her guardian wouldn't let her go out on a school night.

It was something she herself probably would have done at Asuka's age, had she enjoyed a normal adolescence, but just the same, Misato made a mental note to say something to the Second Child about this later. Hoping she wouldn't forget., Misato absently reached into one of her cabinets and withdrew a package of instant noodles.

"Oh, you don't have to eat that stuff," Shinji said, just the faintest trace of disdain for the preprocessed noodle dish in his voice. "I saved some dinner for you. Just give me a second to finish clearing the table and heat it up."

Misato grinned and abruptly wrapped the boy in a tight hug. As always, this had the effect of burying his face in her ample bust, but the purple haired woman wasn't about to allow minor details like that keep her from displaying affection to her ward, especially when it had the hilarious side effect of making him all flustered and embarrassed.

"You're so sweet, Shinji-kun!" she exclaimed, before finally releasing him.

The teenager mumbled something incomprehensible, his face a bright red. Misato smirked. She had expected that the Third Child would become inured to her eventually, but it had never happened, much to her delight.

"I'm just going to change," she said, "back in a flash."

He mumbled something, but Misato couldn't decipher it, as the poor boy had apparently not yet regained the power of speech in its entirety. She cheerfully made her way to her bedroom, where she pulled the ring out of her pocket. She again regarded it, but then decided that now wasn't the time and set it down on top of her dresser before exchanging her NERV uniform for a yellow tank top and her favorite denim shorts.

By the time she got out, Shinji was setting rice, soup and fish on the table.

"Looks great, Shinji-kun," Misato said as she sat down and grabbed her chopsticks.

"Sorry it's nothing fancy," he said as he poured her a glass of water.

"Nonsense!" she mumbled through a mouthful of rice. "This is great!"

"Hungry?" Shinji asked after a few seconds of watching her shovel food into her mouth as quickly as she could.

"Yeah, it's been a long day," she said, wondering if using the ring stimulated her appetite or if it was just the whirlwind of the day's events. "Shinji-kun, could you please get me a beer?"

He sighed disapprovingly but did as she asked, taking a can of Yebisu out of the fridge and setting it in front of her. Misato cracked it and then happily took a swig. "So how was school?" she asked as she set the can down.

"Okay, I guess," he replied.

"That's it?" she asked.

He shrugged. "It was the same as most days, really," he said. "Nothing worth talking about ever happens in school, really."

Misato shook her head. Shinji had a lot of good qualities, but the Third Child simply was not a conversationalist. And long silences made her nervous, which was probably one of the reasons she tended to be a rather loud person.

Unfortunately, there was only so much noise one could make while gulping down dinner.

A few minutes later, she had emptied the plates that Shinji had set in front of her. The Third Child looked wide eyed at her. "Uh, do you want me to make some more?" he asked.

"No thanks, Shinji-kun," Misato said easily. "Now could you be a dear and take care of the dishes? I have work to do."

She knew it wasn't right to dump the chores on Shinji and then hole herself up in her room, but she was burning with curiosity about her power ring, as just about anyone would be in her position. There were still so many things she didn't know about it, and she could only find out by asking it questions and experimenting with it.

Shinji frowned. "You should really tell NERV to lay off you, though, if they keep you so late and then make you take work home."

"Isn't that the truth?" Misato huffed, even though the extra hours she was putting in that day had nothing to do with her employer. "Unfortunately, NERV human resources becomes conveniently deaf when anyone complains to them, and the Commanders are too busy to worry about that sort of thing."

"I see," he said. "Well, I can handle the dishes. You go ahead."

"Thanks, Shinji-kun!" Misato cheered, heading for her bedroom.

Shinji Ikari was surprisingly dependable for someone who had tried to run away several months ago, she had found.

_He's such a sweet guy,_ she mused absently. _If only he had a girlfriend, I bet it would do him a world of good. If only…_

She shook her head at the last bit. It was _not_ a good idea to think about the boy she had taken in like that. For all she might tease him, she knew that any attempts at making anything serious happen between them simply could not end well. The large age gap between them was enough to guarantee that all by itself, never mind every other factor that could cause a relationship to end in tears.

Misato slid open the door to her room, and all thoughts of Shinji Ikari were banished from her mind as she lay eyes on the ring that was still sitting on her dresser. She carefully slid the door shut behind her, then picked up the ring and put it on.

She was surprised when her clothes weren't replaced by her Green Lantern uniform again, and she frowned down at it. "Ring, are you out of power?" she asked.

Misato certainly hoped that wasn't the case, as she currently had no idea how to use her battery to recharge the thing.

_"Negative,"_ the ring answered. _"Power level at 36.2 percent."_

"Shh! Not so loud! Shinji will hear," she hissed.

_"Lowering volume,"_ it said in a much softer voice.

"Okay," Misato said. "Now, why didn't you put me in my Green Lantern uniform again?"

_"You have not willed this ring to do so,"_ it answered simply.

Misato nodded. She'd assumed that the ring would put her into the uniform whenever she wore it, but this was apparently not the case. It was just one example of many of how woefully inadequate her knowledge of the power ring was.

She commanded the ring to put her in uniform, which it obediently did, then regarded herself in her mirror. Misato had to admit that the form fitting uniform was quite striking. The torso was emerald green, save for a white circle on the chest that had the Green Lantern emblem inside it. The arms and legs were pure black, but the boots and gloves were white.

She also noted that her eyes changed to the same piercing shade of green that Abin Sur's had been before he'd removed the ring and bestowed it upon her.

Looking at her reflection, she felt the full force of it finally strike her.

_I have honest to god super powers,_ she thought, remembering the superhero cartoons she'd watched as a child and feeling a surge of mixed emotions wash over her.

Part of her felt excitement bubbling up at the very idea, however, another part couldn't help but recall all the difficulties those fictional heroes had had to endure, both on the battlefield and while struggling to keep their personal lives from falling apart.

The practical (and tactical) part of her eventually shut both of them up, turning her attention to the matter at hand. She had been given a weapon of incredible power, and she wanted to bring it to bear against the Angels. However, she wasn't ready yet to try and face them.

For one thing, her Green Lantern uniform did nothing to conceal her identity, something that could easily prove a problem. The Commander had more than once shown himself to be extremely hostile to anyone that tried to interfere in the war, even if they were clearly on NERV's side. No amount of reasoning could move him, so it was safe to say that her openly taking the fight to the Angels with her new ring was a very unwise idea.

"I can't let people know I'm the Green Lantern," she muttered.

_"Concealing identity,"_ the ring spoke.

Misato was temporarily blinded as jade flames painlessly burst into being over her eyes. When they cleared, she could see that she now wore a green mask.

_Okay, that's a start,_ she thought. _But mask or no, if a woman with purple hair, and, well, a rack as big as mine starts flying around fighting the Angels, people are going to suspect me._

Her hair could be easily changed to a more common shade, but if she dyed it and then the Green Lantern made her first appearance with the same hair color, people might still make the connection.

_I wonder…_ she thought speculatively, focusing her will.

There was a brief flicker of light from the ring, and her hair changed to a lime green color, causing Misato to shudder in revulsion. While it _would_ help prevent people from realizing who the Green Lantern was, it also looked absolutely hideous. Yet Misato wasn't sure whether she had another option.

_Hmm, well, the uniform is partly black and white, so obviously the ring can make stuff that isn't green,_ she thought, focusing her will again.

This time her locks turned raven black, the color of the vast bulk of the Japanese population's hair. NERV would never be able to identify her based on that.

Also, it had the added benefit of not looking ridiculous.

"Okay, better," she said. "Too bad I can't do anything else."

_"You are capable of using this ring to perform limited physical alterations to yourself,"_ the ring spoke up.

Misato blinked in surprise. "Really?"

_"Affirmative. The most common use of this function is increasing a Green Lantern's musculature."_

"Let's give that a try, then," Misato said.

Green light flared briefly around her form, and Misato felt the strangest tingling sensation sweep over her, surprise briefly paralyzing her as it did. But it ended after only an instant, and Misato quickly looked up at her mirror.

"Whoa," she said as she looked at her reflection and saw the considerable changes that had occurred to her body.

She wasn't overly muscled like a bodybuilder by any stretch of the imagination, but she'd definitely put on some muscle, and the skin tight costume allowed her to see that she was now seriously ripped. All in all, she looked like someone who spent her spare time at the gym instead of drinking beer at home, and who was also more genetically predisposed to put on muscle than she.

"I wasn't this buff when I was in military training!" she said, flexing her arm.

Impressively peaked biceps bulged up, and Misato let out a low whistle as she reached out to touch it with her other hand, finding it as solid as a rock.

And she had a six pack. That amazed her; she'd _never_ had a six pack before.

_It's too bad that this is part of a disguise, because I wouldn't mind looking like this all the time!_ She thought. _This ring is way better than any diet I ever tried!_

Misato forcibly quelled the giddiness that was threatening to overwhelm her. She hadn't won the lottery, much as it might feel like it at the moment. In reality, she had been handed an enormous responsibility that apparently just happened to come with a number of fringe benefits.

"I can look like this every time I go out as the Green Lantern?" she asked. "And I can look like I did before when I'm 'off duty?'"

_"Affirmative."_

She nodded. "Well, that's what I'm going to do, then."

_"Acknowledged."_

"Good," she said. "Now I just need to figure out how to keep people from seeing the ring while I'm being me instead of the Green Lantern…"

She could just keep the thing in her pocket most of time, but the risk of losing the ring if she did that would be unacceptably high. Besides, the Angels could strike at a moment's notice, which meant she needed to be ready to fight them just as quickly. That meant wearing the ring most, if not all of the time.

But how could she keep the people around her from noticing the big green thing on her finger?

_"This ring is capable of bending light around objects to render them invisible." _The ring spoke up, as though reading her mind.

Misato's eyes widened. It seemed as though whenever she was sure the power ring couldn't get any more amazing, it topped itself. She concentrated, and though it took a surprising amount of effort, the ring soon vanished from view. Yet she could still feel it on her finger.

She knew it wasn't a perfect solution; she'd have to make sure nobody else felt it on her hand. However, she was too blown away to care about that much at the moment.

"Incredible," she whispered as she allowed the ring to become visible once more.

Well, that took care of the problem of keeping her identity a secret, she decided. Now she had to deal with the fact that she still had very little idea of what she was doing so far as being the Green Lantern was concerned.

"Tell me everything," Misato said to the ring. "Everything I can do with you. All the rules and regulations I'll be expected to follow. Everything I need to know to be a Green Lantern."

She was up for several hours listening to the ring tell her about her new role.

* * *

The next morning, the Ops Director stumbled blearily out of her room and to the kitchen. Misato wished that she hadn't felt the need to listen to everything the ring had had to tell her in one night, but she hadn't felt the least bit tired as it had listed off the variety of incredible powers it conferred to her.

"Morgen, Sunshine," Asuka greeted her as she entered the kitchen.

Misato gave the Second Child a bloodshot glare, remembering vaguely that there was something she wanted to say to the redhead. Unfortunately, she couldn't recall just what that was, so it would have to remain unsaid.

"Are you all right, Misato?" Shinji asked. "How long were up working last night?"

She smiled tiredly in response to Shinji's sympathetic look. "Too long," she yawned as she got a beer out of her fridge. She cracked open the top and then chugged the contents, feeling energy flowing into her along with the cold brew. "YEEE-HAAAW!"

She then let out a loud burp. "Much better."

Asuka rolled her eyes. Misato pretended not to notice.

"Anyway, guys, I'll probably have to work late at NERV tonight," Misato said as she sat down at the kitchen table.

"Again?" Shinji asked, distraught.

"Afraid so," Misato said. "So the two of you are going to have to figure out what to do for dinner without me."

"Misato…you don't help with dinner even when you're here," Asuka pointed out.

"Neither do you," Misato snapped.

Shinji cleared his throat before an argument could erupt. "Would you like me to save you some dinner again, Misato?" he offered.

She nodded gratefully. "Thanks, Shinji."

The rest of the meal passed uneventfully, and soon the residents of the apartment (save Pen-Pen) were ready to head out and face the day. Misato bid good-bye to Shinji and Asuka as they started walking for school, then headed to her car.

She fingered the once again invisible ring on her finger as she walked. The Ops Director didn't have to work late that night any more than she'd worked late the previous night. However, she wanted to try some of the things the power ring had told her about.

* * *

One of things that most people tend not to realize about war is that it's often made up of long periods of boredom, which are occasionally broken by short periods of absolute chaos. Misato Katsuragi, unlike most people, was only too well aware of this, because her job reflected it.

Whenever there was no Angel attacking, her job generally boiled down to doing paperwork.

Misato, who had difficulty keeping focused on the mind-numbingly dull reports at the best of times, couldn't concentrate at all that day. She kept thinking about the ring and what she had planned for that evening.

Finally, she gave up and left her desk, heading down to the commissary for a cup of coffee. With this in hand, she headed to Ritsuko's office, figuring that she could kill some time by looking in on her bottle blond friend.

"Hello, Ritsuko," she greeted in a sing-song voice as she entered the scientist's office without knocking.

"Morning, Misato," Ritsuko commented, not immediately looking away from her computer screen. "The paperwork especially boring today?"

Misato blinked. "Uh, yeah, how do you know?"

Ritsuko finally turned to her, smirking. "You usually don't come down here to pester me until early afternoon," she said.

Misato scowled playfully. "Is that how you respond to a visit from your old friend?"

"Did my old friend bring me a coffee?" Ritsuko asked, gesturing toward the steaming paper cup in Misato's hand.

The Ops Director pulled her drink closer to her in a possessive manner. "No."

"In that case, yes, this is how I greet my old friend," Ritsuko said.

The two glowered at one another for a few seconds before breaking out into laughter.

"So, what's up?" Ritsuko asked as she calmed down.

"Oh, not much," Misato lied. "You?"

"Nothing you'd be interested in," Ritsuko replied. "We're still scrambling around trying to get Unit One fully repaired as quickly as possible. Other than that, everything's pretty normal with Tech Division One."

The blonde didn't notice, but Misato had watched her face very closely as she answered. After returning home the previous night, the Ops Director had started to wonder whether or not the MAGI had taken any notice of the power ring.

However, Ritsuko hadn't mentioned anything, and Misato couldn't see any trace of deception in the blonde's face.

_That's one less thing to worry about,_ she thought. _For now, anyway._

"So," Ritsuko said, "you decide to hit the bottle harder than usual last night?"

"Huh?"

"Your eyes are all bloodshot, and you look tired," Ritsuko said.

"Oh…oh yeah!" Misato said. "I had sort of a rough night yesterday, Rits. I just kept thinking about what could have gone wrong at Mount Asuma."

Ritsuko nodded. "Second Impact all over again."

That wasn't what Misato had been thinking about, but as she was lying anyway, she just nodded in agreement. In truth, she realized she hadn't thought about Mount Asuma once since being summonsed by Abin Sur, which caused her to feel a twinge of shame.

"Yeah," Misato said. "I'll be over it and bounce back in a couple of days. I always do."

"Yeah," the faux blonde agreed. "After all, what other choice do we have?"

She and Ritsuko shot the breeze for a few more minutes, but Misato eventually left to allow the scientist to get back to work. She herself moved very little paper as the hours dragged by, and when it finally came time for her to leave, she practically sprinted to her car. Once in her prized Renault Alpine, she drove not home, but to the area she'd picked to serve as her training ground.

* * *

When the Angels had arrived, many people had, understandably, left the city they had attacked. However, Tokyo-3 wasn't the only place that people were making an escape from. The citizens of many of the villages that surrounded the fortress city were likewise emptying out, and some of those villages had already become ghost towns.

It was one of these that Misato drove to that evening. A large section of Kaisei-2 had been destroyed when a VTOL that had been struck down by the Third Angel crashed into the center of the village, and the place had simply been unable to recover.

Fortunately for Misato, it wasn't the broken down village itself that she was interested it, but what had been the center of the town's economy before it had been abandoned.

An abandoned quarry struck her as being as good a place as any to train herself with the power ring. She drove her car as close as she could get to it before getting out, retrieving the power battery from her trunk. Reaching the edge of the great pit in the ground that had once been the lifeblood of the nearby town, Misato willed her Green Lantern uniform to come into being.

It did so, and she flew down into the quarry.

"Okay, first thing's first," she muttered to herself, "after all, if I can't recharge this thing, it's going to be a hunk of junk pretty soon."

She held up the power battery with her left hand, then brought her right hand, the one with the ring, next to it.

"In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight," she spoke the oath of the corps. "Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power…Green Lantern's light!"

Green light flared from the power battery, but somehow Misato wasn't blinded by it.

_"Power levels 100 percent,"_ the ring announced, and the light from the power battery faded.

Misato looked down at the ring. "I cannot believe that worked."

Of all the ways she might have used the battery to recharge the ring, she never would have guessed that it was done by just saying some fancy words while the two were close to each other.

Then she shrugged and set her battery down on the ground. She had come here to train after all, not to gape over the quirks of the ring.

A beam of emerald light shot out of her ring, the end of it forming a hand. The green hand grabbed hold of block of stone that was easily as large as her car and effortlessly hurled it high up into the air. Misato allowed her construct to wink out of existence, and the stone block continued to fly upwards for a few seconds before it first slowed and then stopped as it ran out of momentum.

Just before it began to fall again, Misato formed a construct of a missile. The green rocket soared upward, quickly slamming into the falling block of stone. There was a great explosion which shattered the stone into pieces.

Misato quickly formed a sphere of emerald light around herself, protecting herself from the chips of stone that came raining down.

She smiled. "I think I'm starting to get the hang of this…"

For hours she practiced using the ring. She flew, created elaborate energy constructs, blasted rocks apart, and was even able to phase through solid stone. With every new thing she did, it further dawned on her just how powerful the ring she'd inherited truly was.

"Geeze, this thing's like a cosmic Swiss army knife," she said, looking down at it.

She stretched languidly, feeling like she had made a lot of progress toward mastering her new powers that evening. Misato was about to will herself back into her normal clothes and return to her car when she heard voices coming from nearby.

Misato frowned. There was only one reason people would venture to the ghost town of Kaisei-2, and that was if they planned to do something they didn't want others to observe.

_It's probably just some teenagers who scored a case of beer and are looking to get hammered out in private,_ she thought, trying to convince herself to ignore it and head home after her long day.

But she couldn't. Something nagged at her, telling her that whoever was coming had something far more sinister in mind than getting plastered before reaching the legal drinking age. Besides, wasn't she charged with enforcing order and justice? She couldn't just walk away if she thought something wrong was happening.

_This is probably going to be a waste of time…but I guess I should check,_ she decided at last.

Not wanting to make herself known if the people she heard approaching _was_ just a group of teenagers with booze (because kami knew she was the _last_ person who belonged to be yelling at people for something like that), Misato willed light to bend around her form and render her invisible.

The effort left her winded and sweating, but within seconds, she had vanished from sight. After taking a moment to catch her breath, Misato flew off to where the voices were coming from.

A group of people had gathered by the edge of the shattered town, she saw at once. Getting closer, Misato immediately realized that her "kids with beer" theory was shot; while there were a few teenagers among the crowd, several of the people there were older than she was.

The differing ages wasn't the really strange part about the group, though; what they were wearing was. They were dressed in robes of a variety of colors, and several of them seemed to be carrying katanas or wooden swords.

_Cosplayers?_ She wondered, silently drawing nearer.

If that were the case, there was no need for her to be there. She certainly wasn't about to harass people whose only crime was deciding to reenact a scene from some anime or book.

A middle aged man dressed in saffron robes that had been embroidered with a red dragon stepped forward. In his hands, he held a double bladed axe that looked like it had been painted gold.

"Brothers and sisters!" he shouted. "We have gathered here for one reason! To commune with that which most refuse to believe exists!"

This didn't exactly dispel her idea that these people might be cosplayers, but the Green Lantern didn't depart just yet. There was a certain quiet intensity in the crowd that she didn't like.

"God is angry!" the leader continued. "He hath called down his Angels to smite us! The resistance of Man may have thwarted the first few messengers of death, but ultimately they can only call down further vengeance upon us! _We_ know this! _We_ must deal with problem! _We_ must appease the Almighty!"

_Cultists,_ Misato thought with distaste.

In the wake of the almost-Armageddon that was Second Impact, there had—perhaps unsurprisingly—been a surge of spiritual fervor around the world as each religion interpreted the horrible disaster in their own way. This had just been starting to die down when NERV had, for reasons Misato would never be able to comprehend, decided to name the monsters they were fighting "Angels."

A number of crazy cults had sprung up after that, most of them clustering in Tokyo-3. Some were innocuous, others not so much.

_Now I just have to figure out what kind this group is,_ she thought.

She didn't like the kinds of wackos who tended to join these groups, but if all they planned to do was chant and pray to whatever god they worshipped for a while, they were perfectly within their rights.

"We know that there is only one way to soothe the divine wrath!" the leader shouted. "Sacrifice!"

The followers cheered, and two of them emerged from the crowd, carrying a young woman who was gagged and bound in thick ropes. Misato could clearly see that she was crying with terror, tears flowing from her bloodshot eyes.

_That's not good!_

Misato allowed herself to become visible again and shouted down at the crowd, "No one's sacrificing anyone, you psychos!"

The cultists gasped as they saw a woman surrounded by a halo of emerald light appear out of thin air to chastise them. The distinct ring of steel could clearly be heard as many of the ones that had katanas drew them, probably doing so in anger for the first time.

"A demon hath come to stop us from performing our divine task!" the leader proclaimed, pointing up at Misato.

"I'm no demon," she said, allowing herself to land so she could face them eye to eye. "I'm someone who can't let a bunch of crazy people murder an innocent woman for no reason."

The leader of the cultists ignored her. "Come, my friends, we must slay this foul demon!"

"I don't think so," Misato replied.

Several rays of emerald light shot out of her ring, forming human-sized hands. The constructs snatched the weapons from the armed cultists with incredible strength, then knocked them down to the dirt just for good measure.

However, when one of the jade hands tried to grasp the leader's axe, it went right through the weapon, as though the construct had no more substance to it than a shadow.

"Ha! The Almighty protects me from your infernal powers, demon!" the leader yelled, hefting his axe.

"What the hell?" the Green Lantern whispered, bewildered.

She sent a blast of green energy at the leader of the cultists, one just powerful enough to knock him out. It slammed right into the middle of his torso, but it had no more effect than a flashlight's beam would have.

"My God protects me!" the leader cried, charging forward toward Misato, his axe swinging.

Reflexes took over as he rounded on her, all thoughts about her ring momentarily abandoning her as she nimbly dodged his attack. The axe missed her by a wide margin, and went straight into the ground, where it became soundly buried. The cult leader grunted as he attempted to pull it free.

Misato didn't give him the chance to try for very long. Since her ring wasn't working, she drew back her fist and punched him right across the face, producing a loud _crack!_

Misato Katsuragi was a lot stronger than she looked, and the enhanced musculature she boasted as the Green Lantern hadn't exactly turned her into a weakling. The cult leader was middle-aged, slightly overweight, and hadn't been in a fist fight since he was 13. He went down hard, collapsing to the ground, and then looked groggily up at the Green Lantern with unfocused eyes.

"Where is your god _now?_" Misato taunted, clapping her hands together a few times to dust them off. "Jerk."

The other cultists took their leader's defeat as a sign that it was time to retreat, but Misato wasn't about to let them escape so easily. With a thought, she imprisoned the lot of them, with the exception of the barely conscious leader, in several green spheres of emerald light.

Misato's first impulse was to rush over to the hostage, but she was unwilling to allow the leader to remain unrestrained while she did so. He seemed pretty much incapacitated, and while she doubted he had the brains to play possum until he saw his chance, she knew better than to needlessly risk it.

She looked around, and soon spotted a clothes' line that was still up by an abandoned house. She easily retrieved it with the aid of her ring, then bound the man's wrists and ankles tightly together, taking no care for his comfort or circulation. After what he'd been trying to do to a defenseless young woman, she wasn't exactly feeling very merciful toward him.

"There," she said, then briefly looked down at him, wondering why he had been immune to her power.

The answer struck her like a bolt of lightning, and suddenly she couldn't believe how stupid she'd been. The man was wearing yellow, and even his axe had been painted gold. Her ring was ineffective against the color yellow. Abin Sur had told her so himself, but she'd allowed that to slip her mind as she'd become more and more amazed by the powers of her ring.

_Rookie mistake, Katsuragi,_ she scolded herself silently.

Well, she figured as she approached the hostage, it could easily have been worse. At least the lesson had come at the price of a bad scare, rather than a serious injury, or worse.

Misato squatted down near the hostage, and a box cutter of emerald light appeared in her hand. A few quick cuts rendered the woman free.

"Thank you!" the woman gasped, wiping at her tear streaked face. "Thank you so much! They would have killed me if you hadn't stopped them!"

Misato smiled. "You're welcome," she said. "Are you all right?"

The woman nodded. "Just fine."

"Good. Now, I'm going to take all of you to a police station in the city," Misato said. "You're going to have to tell them what they did to you and get them arrested so they can't do this to anyone else, all right?"

The woman hesitated for a moment, then nodded bravely. "All right," she said. "But how are you going to get all of us into the city?"

Misato's smile widened. "Easy," she said. "Now hang on."

She concentrated, and a new force bubble surrounded the would-be human sacrifice, who gasped. Misato willed all the force fields she'd created to rise up into the air, then she sent out a jade hand to grab the leader by the ropes she'd used to bind him. Once everyone else was airborne, she herself rose up into the air.

"Okay, everybody!" she shouted cheerfully. "Follow me!"

* * *

Captain Yuki of the Tokyo-3 Police Department was _bored_. The city was almost freakishly quiet that night, with seemingly nobody doing anything more illegal than jaywalking. This, of course, left him sitting idly at the front desk, counting the minutes until his shift ended.

He knew that peace was a good thing and that it was wrong to wish for some disaster to occur or for some crime to be committed, but damn it, the main reason he'd become a cop was because he'd thought it would never be dull.

He yawned and stretched. "Shows how much I know…"

Just then, there was a great flare of green light outside, bright enough to flood the front of the police station through the windows and momentarily blind Yuki. Blinking away spots, he leapt off his chair and rushed toward the door to investigate, several other officers just a step behind him.

What he saw when he made it outside shocked him. Hovering just above the ground were about half a dozen spheres of green light, all of them containing several people in absurd costumes. A disheveled young woman with numerous bruises stood on the sidewalk in front of the station, with a bound man in yellow robes at her feet. And above all of them flew a masked woman with a _smoking_ hot body in a wonderfully tight green, black, and white outfit.

"What in god's name…?" he gasped.

"Officer," the young woman said, stepping forward. "This group of people are cultists, and they tried to sacrifice me. They would have succeeded, too, if not for her." She added, pointing up at the flying woman in green.

"Oh," was all Yuki could say at first, too shocked to come up with anything more intelligent.

Then he remembered himself and spun around on his heel to face his fellow officers. "Okay, boys, let's cuff these creeps," he said.

The gathered police officers quickly got to work, and a few minutes later, the cultists had all been cuffed and were being led into the station.

"I have to say, you're taking this whole situation really well," the woman in green commented in a cheerful, teasing tone.

Maybe it was because she was gorgeous, or maybe it was how surreal the whole scene was, but whatever the reason, Captain Yuki found himself smiling helplessly at her. "You have to get used to crazy things happening if you live in _this_ city," he said. "Especially if you're a cop here."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," she replied. "Say, do you have the time?"

"Huh? Oh, sure," he said, consulting his wristwatch. "It's just past eleven-thirty."

Her eyes widened. "Already? Geeze, I should really head home!" she exclaimed. "You have everything under control here, officer?"

"Completely," Yuki said with a nod.

"Wait," the young woman who'd nearly been sacrificed said. "You saved my life and I don't even know who you are."

The woman in green smirked. "I'm the Green Lantern."

With that, she flew off, leaving a short lived trail of emerald light in her wake.

* * *

Over a half an hour later, Misato crept as guiltily into her own apartment as any teenager who'd been out until well after curfew had passed, hoping not to awaken either of her charges. She could have made it back to her apartment from the station in minutes, but she'd had to venture back to Kaisei-2 to retrieve both her car and her power battery.

Not that it really would have made that big a difference, though. Either way, she would have been quite late in getting home.

She got a shock when she opened the door and tiptoed into the kitchen. Shinji Ikari was sitting at the kitchen table, asleep, his head pillowed by his arm.

_He tried to wait up for me,_ she thought, feeling almost absurdly touched.

It was amazing that Shinji, a teenage boy, sometimes behaved more like a father than her actual father had. He certainly was more consistent about showing that he cared, even if he only did so in his timid fashion.

"You so deserve a great girl who realizes what a catch you are," she whispered to the sleeping teen, leaning down and planting a light kiss on his forehead. "I really wish I wasn't too old you." She added.

Misato wanted to move Shinji into bed; the position he was in looked less than comfortable, but she was afraid of waking him up.

Then she realized how she could smoothly move him to his room. But no, it was much too great a risk.

_Oh, what the hell?_ Misato thought as she channeled her willpower into the ring.

Soft green light surrounded Shinji's sleeping form, and the Third Child was smoothly levitated out of his chair. Misato carefully guided him down the hallway to his room, half convinced that he'd wake up or that Asuka would emerge at any moment and catch her. However, neither thing happened, and Misato was able to gently lay Shinji into his bed, the pilot of Unit One still very much asleep as she did so.

"Good night, Shinji-kun," she whispered before sliding the door to his room shut.

She returned to the kitchen, where she found the food Shinji had made for her waiting in the fridge. She heated it, then gobbled it down before she headed to her own bedroom.

"What a day," she yawned as she stripped off her uniform. "I'm going to regret the late night tomorrow. Again."

Not that it was so atrociously late; she'd routinely stayed up far later back in college. Of course, she'd been younger back then, and she could just cut her morning class if she felt she needed extra sleep.

_Well, at least I got a lot of practice with the ring,_ she thought. _I'm as ready for action as I'll ever be._

Which left just one problem, the one she'd been ignoring until now because she couldn't figure out a way to solve it.

Despite the wide array of powers that the ring possessed, even it couldn't let her be in two places at once. And as the Operations Director, she was of course expected to be in the command center when an Angel showed up, not outside fighting the beast as the Green Lantern.

She wasn't sure how she could get away, and since she wasn't even sure whether the ring had the raw power necessary to defeat an Angel, Misato wasn't eager to take drastic measures to avoid her duties. If she did, and the ring proved inadequate for breaching an AT field, she might well shut herself out of the war.

Little did she know that circumstances would soon give her a chance to test the ring in battle against an Angel.

Alone.

* * *

Author's Notes: This chapter was basically the warm up round, since I really don't think Misato could successfully operate as the new GL right out of the gate. She would need at least some practice before she got the hang of it. The encounter with the cultists was mostly there to keep this chapter from being too dull, and I decided to take the opportunity to acquaint our new Lantern with the yellow impurity while I was at it.

Also, I should probably mention that I'm not sure the "where is your god now?" line was exactly in character for Misato, but the opportunity was too good to pass up.

Zenn1, at the risk of sounding like I'm pandering for praise, I have to say that even reviews of the "write moar!" variety help me keep up my enthusiasm for writing these fics, so please don't hold back.

Ryousanki, good to see you back. Unfortunately, GL rings really don't do things like decide what their owner should consume or not. When it comes down to it, they're really just tools.

Gunman, good to see you. Personally, I don't see Misato bothering too much with altering her costume. She wants to fight a war as the GL, not go out on the town to be seen. Besides, she never struck me as terribly fashion conscious most of the time, anyway. Also, I don't plan to bring the War of Light to Tokyo-3, but I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought over who got which ring. Shinji, if I gave him one, would definitely be indigo. It just suits him too well. I also know who'd I'd give the black ring to. All I'll say is that it wouldn't be Rei.

Zoro50, pretty much dragging his successor to him is what Abin Sur did in DC canon. In _Green Lantern: Secret Origin_, when Hal Jordan was selected, he heard the ring say "You have been chosen" and suddenly he was covered in green light and flying through the air toward Abin Sur's crashed space ship.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers. Now for a little fun!

* * *

Omake

Strange Awareness

"I can't let people know I'm the Green Lantern," she muttered.

_"Concealing identity,"_ the ring spoke.

Misato was temporarily blinded as jade flames painlessly burst into being over her eyes. When they cleared, she could see that she now wore a green mask.

"Okay, better," she said. "Too bad I can't do anything else."

_"You are capable of using this ring to perform limited physical alterations to yourself,"_ the ring spoke up.

Misato blinked in surprise. "Really?"

_"Affirmative. The most common use of this function is increasing a Green Lantern's musculature."_

"I think it would be simpler if you just made my boobs smaller while I'm being the Green Lantern," Misato said.

_"Cannot comply."_

"What? Why not?"

_"Are you kidding?"_ The ring asked. _"Do you have any idea how the readers would respond if I shrank your breasts? They're smash the fourth wall to rubble, come across, and then smash _me_!"_

"Readers? Fourth wall? What?" Misato asked, bewildered.

The ring hesitated for a moment before it spoke again. _"Oh, I forgot, you can't see across the fourth wall in this Superwomen of Eva series."_

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Misato demanded.

_"Nothing, never mind,"_ the ring said. _"I can't shrink your breasts because that would be…violating the law of conservation of matter. Yes…that's it."_

Misato just sweat dropped in response, deciding that her power ring was either broken, insane, or secretly perverted.


	3. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Two:** First Blood

Misato Katsuragi was tired as she walked through the hallways of NERV that morning, and the cup of coffee she was nursing had yet to have an effect.

_I guess it's what I get for staying out so late last night, doing the ' super-hero' thing,_ she thought as she released a huge yawn.

It kind of seemed unfair, she mused. She'd been out there doing good; she should be rewarded for that, not feeling tired and dragged out in the same way she would have if she'd just been out clubbing or something.

Clearly, there was no such thing as karmic justice in the universe.

"Good morning, Misato."

Misato started, nearly spilling some of her coffee, as she abruptly realized that Ritsuko was right beside her. She hadn't even noticed the blond scientist's approach.

"Morning, Ritsuko," she replied, quickly regaining her composure. "What are you up to today?"

"Running a series of experiments on Unit Zero, starting at 10:30," the scientist answered. "What about you?"

Misato sighed. "You know that whenever there's no Angel around, I'm nothing but a glorified paper-pusher, Rits."

The faux blonde smirked. "True," she said, then she hesitated. "Hey, Misato have you…done something?"

The Ops Director frowned in confusion. "Done something?" she echoed.

"Like go on a diet, or started using some new skin cream or something," Ritsuko elaborated. "You look nice, but I can't put my finger on why exactly."

Misato blinked. When her friend had said 'hello' to her, she'd assumed it was just a matter of time before she started getting needled about how dragged out she looked. A compliment was the last thing she'd expected.

"No, I haven't done anything," she said. "Maybe I'm just having a good hair day or something." She added with a grin, reaching back and flouncing her purple locks.

Ritsuko shrugged. "Anyway, have you heard the news?"

"What news?" Misato asked.

"There's a new one," Ritsuko said, handing a tabloid to Misato.

Large red letters at the top of the cover identified the rag as "The Tokyo Tattler" ('Bringing You Important News, Opinions, and Gossip from the Tokyo-2 and Tokyo-3 Areas').

Below this were the words "Emerald Champion Saves Woman from Crazed Cultists!" done in large, green block letters. Accompanying the dramatic headline was a surprisingly accurate artist's depiction of the Green Lantern, presumably done from descriptions of her given by witnesses. They'd even gotten the Green Lantern symbol right.

_Wow, it really doesn't take these people any time at all, does it?_ She thought, impressed despite herself.

"So, how's the Commander taking this?" Misato asked, suddenly finding her mouth rather dry.

"I don't know," Ritsuko said. "I'm going to try and avoid him for a while. I'd suggest you do the same."

"No argument here," Misato said.

The Green Lantern was not the first superwoman to make an appearance in Tokyo-3, Misato knew. She also knew that the Commander had not taken a liking to a single one of them, and he regarded the ones that involved themselves in the war against the Angels with particular rancor. The man was likely to be in a foul mood for the entire day, at least.

"Well, I have to get moving if I want to start the experiments on time," Ritsuko said. "I promised the Commanders results, so I can't drag my feet with this."

"Right," Misato said, "I guess I'll see you later, then."

She tried to hand the tabloid back to Ritsuko, but the scientist refused to take it. "You can keep that," she said, "I'm done with it."

"Thanks," Misato said automatically as the two of them parted ways.

Once Ritsuko was out of sight, she flipped open the copy of the Tokyo Tattler and began to skim through the sizeable article written on the Green Lantern. The bulk of it was sheer speculation, of course, but still…

_This is freaky,_ she decided, having been unprepared for this part of the 'superhero' gig. Becoming famous just wasn't something she'd thought about at all, though in hindsight it seemed obvious that this sort of thing would happen sooner or later.

With a small sigh, she tucked the tabloid under her arm, then headed to her office.

* * *

It was, at first glance, a very ordinary scene in the life of the EVA pilots. The three of them were out of school and were headed to NERV for the usual series of tests. Nothing could be more normal for them.

However, the Third Child had an unusual little spring in his step and was even humming a tune to himself as he walked, which was, altogether, far from the picture that Shinji usually presented to the world.

"Well, somebody's in a good mood today," Asuka commented.

"Huh?" he said, pulling himself from his thoughts. "Oh, yeah. I guess I am."

"And why would that be, Third Child?" Asuka drawled.

"I just had a really good dream last night," he explained, looking rather sheepish. "I guess I just…woke up happy this morning."

Asuka rolled her eyes for a moment. Only Shinji could sound so embarrassed to admit he was in a good mood. "So what was this dream about?"

"I, uh, can't remember," Shinji confessed.

"You can't remember?" Asuka said, incredulously. "Hmph, more like it was a really hentai dream and you just know better than to tell people the details!"

"What?! No! That's not it at all!" Shinji insisted, his face rapidly flushing crimson.

"I was in it, wasn't I?" Asuka accused, half threatening and half amused.

Of course, Shinji only noticed the threatening half. "No! I swear, I don't remember any of the details!"

_And if I did have a dream about you, I wouldn't be crazy enough to say anything about it!!_ He thought fervently. His sense of self-preservation was better than that.

"So you can't even remember your dream, but it was still enough for you to be cheerful all day?" Asuka asked skeptically.

Shinji nodded. "Yeah," he said distantly. "The only thing I can remember is a lot of green light."

Asuka quirked an eyebrow. "Has anyone ever told you that you can be really weird sometimes, Third?"

"Well, now someone has," Shinji replied.

The conversation sputtered out after this, and the Third Child returned to his thoughts, trying to recall his dream. It was proving itself to be a futile task, however. Every time he tried to grab hold of the memory, it slipped through his fingers like so much smoke, and the veil of green light refused to part and allow him to see anything beyond it.

He was so deep in his fruitless attempts at remembering the dream that he completely forgot about calling his father to inform him of the upcoming parent-teacher meetings. Fortunately, this was no great loss anyway, as the man would simply have refused to go.

* * *

Misato had found herself moving very little paper that day. Every time she started really focusing on her work, her attention was somehow drawn back to that damn rag mag Ritsuko had given her.

It was bizarre that she, the one person on the planet who knew the Green Lantern's story, felt so compelled to keep looking at a "news" story about her that was filled with thinly-veiled conjecture, but there it was.

Crazy as the whole situation was, a part of Misato actually found it kind of cool after she'd gone over the tabloid enough times.

Shaking her head in an attempt to bring herself back to the task of doing her job, she looked down at the document she'd been trying to read for at least ten minutes…and realized she hadn't the slightest idea what it said.

"Okay, obviously it's time for a coffee break," she declared.

Leaving her office, Misato headed down to the base commissary, where she acquired a cup of the sludge that NERV euphemistically referred to as 'coffee'. Whatever it actually was, the stuff had roughly the same caffeine content as real coffee, which was what kept the men and women of NERV drinking it.

Less than eager to return to her desk, Misato remained in the commissary while she drank her coffee, telling herself that she wasn't _really_ trying to overhear any conversations that her co-workers might be having about the Green Lantern. However, there were no such conversations, probably because the news hadn't truly gotten around yet, so it was moot point, anyway.

Eventually, she finished her drink, and finally had no more excuse for staying away from her office and the stacks of paperwork contained within. Throwing away her paper cup, she reluctantly left and headed into a nearby elevator, pressing the button for her desired floor.

"Hey!" she suddenly heard a familiar voice cry. "Hold the elevator!"

She looked up to see Kaji sprinting down the hallway and kept the grimace off her face only with substantial effort. As subtly as she could, she reached out and pressed the door close button. The elevator reacted with what seemed, to Misato, to be appalling sluggishness.

Realizing that Kaji was probably going to make it, she reacted almost without thinking.

Two beams of light emerged from her still invisible ring. Carefully keeping them hidden behind her, Misato sent them down to the floor, where they became so flat that they were only visible to someone looking straight down. Then one went left and the other right, until they were hidden from Kaji's view by the slowly closing doors. The two streams of light sprang up and formed a pair of hands, which pushed the doors shut _just _before Kaji managed to slip a hand in between them.

Misato breathed a sigh of relief as she allowed the constructs to vanish. _I know I'm not supposed to use this thing for personal gain,_ she thought, recalling something the ring had told her when she'd asked about the Corps, _but hopefully these Guardians of the Universe have better things to do than nitpick._

It wasn't that she was totally unreceptive to Kaji's advances. On the contrary, she still felt the old spark of attraction when he was around.

Which was the whole problem really. Part of her did want to get back together with him, but she knew better. She'd been in a relationship with Kaji before, and she was willing to bet that if she let herself do it again, it would end in roughly the same way as it had the first time.

She had no wish to repeat that experience, so obviously the smartest thing to do was just avoid him whenever possible.

Suddenly, the elevator abruptly came to a stop, the force of inertia causing Misato to momentarily lose her balance and nearly drop to the floor. The fluorescent lights that illuminated the car went out, leaving her in total darkness.

_Damn it, karma, why do you only seem to work when it's time to hand out punishments?_ Misato wondered, scowling into the dark.

"Okay, Misato, chill out," she told herself. "The backup power will come on any second now, and—"

Before she could finish, the emergency lights went on, illuminating the elevator with a harsh, orange light. This was not a good sign.

"Ring, what's going on?" she demanded.

_"Virtually all power to NERV headquarters has been cut off,"_ it answered simply.

"How?" she asked.

It shouldn't be possible for the power to just cut out like this, she knew. The base had backup systems and redundancies designed to prevent just this very thing.

_"Unknown."_

"Wonderful," she groaned. "Guess I'm stuck here until Ritsuko manages to fix whatever it is she broke."

* * *

Meanwhile, in a dark laboratory in NERV, a group of technicians were collectively giving the Project-E chairperson a look.

"Hey, it's not my fault," Akagi said defensively.

* * *

Up above the city, the three pilots had reached the Geofront access point. Rei calmly slid her ID card through the reader, only to get no response from the machine. It neither accepted nor rejected her card.

The Second Child quickly grew impatient. She'd dealt with plenty of such card readers, and she knew that when the cards got old, it often became necessary to swipe the thing much more violently than the First would ever do.

"Let me do it!" she said, pushing forward and swiping her own card.

However, she got the same complete absence of a response. "Stupid thing must be broken!"

* * *

Several miles away in Tokyo-2, a group of JSDF officers suddenly saw an enormous object appear on their radar screen. The bogey appeared right at the coast, and it didn't take long to confirm what they knew the minute they saw it.

"Angel number nine," one of the officers said grimly.

"It's heading straight for Tokyo-3," another observed. "Just like all of them."

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it," the first officer said, clearly more than a little disgruntled by this. He crushed the cigarette he'd been smoking into an already full ashtray. "We just have to let NERV take care of it."

* * *

Ryoji Kaji was making his way up a very long stairwell when all the lights went out. He froze for a moment, until the emergency lights came on and it became apparent that power wasn't going to be restored any time soon.

_Well, there has to be some way to take advantage of this,_ he thought with a roguish grin as he began to rush down the stairs, off to confront the absurd number of electronically controlled doors in the NERV base, as well as the fact that the organization kept very few records in paper format.

* * *

_This really sucks,_ Misato thought as she sat inside the elevator car. _I could get out of here anytime, but I can't risk making people suspicious just because it's hot and stuffy in here._

_"Attention, Lantern,"_ the ring said, _"A powerful and hostile life form is approaching Tokyo-3."_

"An Angel?" she asked, her eyes widening.

_"Affirmative."_

Her first, unreasoned reaction to this information was relief that she now had a valid excuse to use her powers to get out of the damned elevator. Then the news actually sank in, and her face hardened.

Here it was, the perfect chance for her to test the ring's power against an Angel without anyone missing her. It was exactly what she'd wanted, and more than she'd felt she could have hope for.

But the price was that she'd have to go at it alone.

"Completely worth it," she declared.

And with a thought, light unbent around her power ring, allowing it to return to visibility. Green flames swept over her form, changing both her body and clothing, burning away the visage of Misato Katsuragi and leaving that of the Green Lantern in her place.

With a slight smile, the Green Lantern took off, phasing through the roof of the elevator car and then anything else that came into her way. The masses of concrete and metal that made up the base, the plates of ultra-dense armor that shielded the Geofront, and the tons of earth between those armor plates were all unable to even slow her down as she flew up and up, soon emerging at the street level of Tokyo-3.

The Green Lantern didn't stop when she made it to the surface. Instead, continued ascending until she was high above even the tallest building in the city. Then she finally came to a halt and allowed herself a moment to simply look down at the world in awe, newly amazed at the ring which could let her float above everything with only a thought.

Then she turned her focus back to the mission. "Ring," she said, "locate the Angel."

Rather than answer her in words, a thin beam of light shot out of the ring and then went streaking into the distance toward the southeast. Misato nodded and took off, following it.

* * *

Down on the street, Hyuga Makoto had only recently realized that the power was out all over the city. The technician could only sigh as he made this discovery, as it seemed like it was par for the course for this day, with the way things were going.

"First, Captain Katsuragi orders me to pick up her dry cleaning for her, and now this," he grumbled to himself.

Sure, he had a thing for the woman, but being forced to take on some of her chores as a part of his job was a little too much. It was almost being like her live-in boyfriend, except without actually living with her or being her boyfriend.

_I feel like I've been gypped somehow…_

Suddenly, a flare of light from above him caught his eye, and he looked up to see something that was glowing green streak across the sky. It was there for little more than a second, but there was no mistaking that he'd seen something.

Makoto, who always made a point of keeping as current as possible on all superwomen related news, gaped. "Was that…was that the Green Lantern?"

* * *

Meanwhile, Asuka had just pronounced herself the leader of the trio of EVA pilots, and the three of them had arrived at a door that would lead them into the tunnels below the city. From said tunnels, they could get into the Geofront, and then to NERV headquarters.

At least, that was the plan, but they'd already run into one obstacle, namely the electronically controlled door's refusal to open without power. Fortunately, this problem was far from insurmountable, because there was a large crank for manually opening the door located right next to it.

"Well, this is your department, Shinji," Asuka said imperiously. "So hop to it!"

Releasing a groan, the Third Child reluctantly did as he was told, grabbing the crank and beginning to turn it.

_When's the last time they oiled this thing?_ He wondered as he applied all his strength to the task, which got the door opening at a very slow pace.

After a few seconds of watching, their fearless leader rolled her eyes. "We're going to be here until Third Impact at this rate," she complained. "Here, baka, move over and let me help."

Shinji certainly didn't complain as Asuka placed her hands along side his on the large crank's handle, and with her help, the door was soon opening considerably faster than it had been.

Rei just stood behind them, observing with a slight frown. Then she saw brief flash of green light from up above. Turning to look at the sky, she found no sign of anything green. With a mental shrug, the First Child turned back to look at her companions.

* * *

The wind roared in the Green Lantern's ears as she soared away from Tokyo-3 and across the countryside. The sensation of complete freedom was incredible, and had circumstances been different, she would probably have been smiling from ear to ear.

However, she was en route to a battle against one of the monsters that had killed half of humanity, including her father. A deadly serious expression was etched upon her face as her mind, in full Operations Director mode, ran through potential methods of attack at high speed. Adrenaline surged through her veins and she seemed to be able to see the world with greater sharpness and clarity.

It had been a long time since she'd experienced the rush that always preceded combat. Commanding battles from a distance came with a very different set of churning emotions than actually plunging into one yourself, she'd learned.

_"Approaching hostile,"_ the ring informed her.

The Green Lantern squinted into the distance, just making out a small, dark shape on the horizon. Said dark shape rapidly grew as she approached it at top speed, until she was able to see that the latest Angel had taken on the form of the daddy longlegs from Hell. Its central body was also covered by a multitude of eyes, because apparently a giant arachnid simply hadn't been creepy and gross enough.

"Ew," the Green Lantern said as she came to stop well above and before it.

The Angel, unsurprisingly, ignored the glowing green gnat that wasn't even blocking its path, and kept plodding toward Tokyo-3, its immense legs moving slowly but still eating up the distance between itself and its target, thanks to their sheer size.

"Ring, any civilians in the area?" the Green Lantern asked.

_"Negative."_

_Moment of truth, Katsuragi,_ she thought to herself as she gathered up her willpower for her assault.

"This is for Dad," she said softly, and then she attacked.

A blast of emerald death exploded from her ring, as thick as a tree trunk. The Lantern's aim was straight and true, and it streaked toward the Angel's central body.

Then an orange, hexagonal barrier of light flashed into existence, halting the progress of the green beam. The Green Lantern gritted her teeth as she tried to overwhelm the Angel's defenses, pouring her strength and determination into the attack.

She gave the assault everything she had…but in the end, it wasn't enough. The green petered out, while the orange barrier held fast, not even having started to buckle, so far as the Green Lantern was able to tell.

"No…" she managed to gasp out, abruptly feeling as though she was on the verge of tears.

It had been a very difficult thing, when she'd finally managed to join NERV and learned that she could never pilot an EVA and fight the Angels directly. The knowledge that all her determination, all her hate, all her lust for revenge was ultimately impotent against the Angels had frustrated and angered her to the very depths of her being.

And now it looked like she had to swallow that bitter pill all over again.

The Angel, of course, wouldn't have cared one bit about its attacker's emotional turmoil even if it had had the capacity to do so. It did, however, care that the green thing had attacked it, and thrown an impressive amount of destructive energy against its AT field.

Over a dozen of the Angel's eerie, yellow and blue eyes shifted with a horrible, wet sound to focus upon its enemy. Then, it loosened a high-pressure blast of brownish liquid from every one of them, sending it soaring toward the hostile.

"Whoa!" Green Lantern exclaimed as she saw the liquid coming at her.

She didn't know what it was exactly, but she didn't think it would be a very good idea to let it touch her, regardless of the protective sheath of emerald light she currently wore over her costume. The Green Lantern ascended rapidly, just avoiding the shower of mystery liquid.

_Let myself get distracted,_ she scolded herself. _Another rookie mistake. Damn, has it really been _that_ long since I was in the field myself?_

Gravity eventually reclaimed its hold on the brown stuff that the Angel had fired at her, and splashed down onto the countryside. The Green Lantern's eyes widened as everything it touched began to smoke and rapidly dissolve.

"Acid," she muttered to herself. "I might have guessed."

The Angel sent another spray at her, and the Green Lantern had to dart to the side in order to avoid it. The evil thing was obviously able to send its acid flying an incredible distance. She'd practically have to be outside of the Earth's atmosphere to be out of range of it, she feared.

It fired still another spurt of acid at her, and again she dodged, this time retaliating with an energy blast that impacted the Angel's AT field harmlessly. The Angel responded by loosening another volley of acid, but this time it didn't aim every eye it could bring to bear at the same point, instead firing at various points around her as well as where she was.

The result was that the Green Lantern had a significantly harder time dodging, though she did manage to pull it off.

_It's learning,_ she thought grimly.

The tactically smart thing to do, she knew, was to withdraw back to Tokyo-3 and alert NERV of the incoming Angel, since it was increasingly looking like all she could do against it was slow it down and give it a nice warm up battle before it was time to face the Evangelions.

But she just _couldn't_ bring herself to concede defeat and go running home that easily. She had waited too long and wanted revenge too much to retreat now. Besides, it was just her out here. It wasn't like when she commanded the Children in battle; she had every right to risk herself as she pleased.

Part of her mind whispered that there were people who needed her, not least of all her charges, but she shook those thoughts off. Shinji and Asuka needed to not be murdered by an Angel, too.

_And it's not like there's nothing to be gained by delaying this thing,_ she thought. It'll give NERV time to get the power back on.

Her mind made up, she began to fly in an erratic pattern, going as fast as she could in an attempt to evade all the blasts of acid.

It got more difficult every second. The Angel's continued failures to reduce her to a liquid state actually seemed to infuriate the thing, and it began firing its acid with an ever-increasing frenzy. Eventually, it got to the point that nearly very single one of its eyes was firing a continuing stream of the corrosive liquid up into the air.

_Oh god, this is bad!_ Misato thought as she dived and whirled crazily through the air, barely able to keep a half-step ahead of her attacker.

Fortunately, this particular Green Lantern didn't just have the ability to overcome great fear. She also had the ability to think under high pressure, and to come up with creative solutions to problems while she did it. Indeed, for whatever reason, she actually tended to become _more_ inventive when under large amount of stress.

And if there was ever a situation that got her creative juices flowing, this was it.

With a thought from her, the ring suddenly expelled a dozen points of light. Every single one of them hovered in midair for a moment, then rapidly began to grow and change shape, until each was a perfect likeness of the Green Lantern.

Of course, despite how perfectly shaped the doppelgangers were, they were all still made of nothing but emerald light. So it would have been plain to even the most dim-witted human which woman was the real Green Lantern, and which ones were the energy constructs.

Fortunately, the Angel was not human, and that the constructs were mere decoys was not something that was immediately apparent to it. It immediately began to divide its fire thirteen ways, allowing its true foe a moment to breathe.

She was doing pretty well on defense now, but offense was still sorely lacking, and she simply couldn't win unless she could get past the AT field.

A blast of acid passed too close for comfort, and she flew up and toward the right to put a little extra distance between her and the fatal solvent.

_Geeze, this thing's insane,_ she thought, gazing down at the Angel, which looked for all the world like the most evil lawn sprinkler on the planet at the moment, as it fired acid in every direction. _How the hell does it keep up those high pressure jets?_

And suddenly, just like that, inspiration struck.

Back when she was a young child, she had often played with water balloons in the hot summer months. The packages of the things usually came with a nozzle that was used to shrink the stream of water from a garden hose or faucet and make it possible to fill the balloons.

Naturally, the result of shrinking the stream was that it increased the pressure that the water came out with.

She wondered, might the same principles apply to the energies of her power ring?

_Only one way to find out,_ she decided, readying for another assault.

Just as when she'd first lashed out at the Angel, she gathered every ounce of willpower and determination that she could muster. Her ring glowed menacingly as she prepared for her strike, looking almost like it was ready to explode with the amount of energy it held. This was not the case, however, as the Green Lantern was firmly in control.

"Take _this!_" the Green Lantern screamed, releasing her attack.

Another blast of emerald light erupted from her ring, containing just as much power as her opening assault. However, this time, the beam was as thin as a pencil and blindingly bright. It looked like someone had somehow removed and transported a tiny sliver of a green star.

The energy bolt streaked toward the Angel, soon impacting its AT field. The emerald beam crashed into the orange barrier, pressing against it furiously. The AT field flashed brightly as it attempted to hold back the beam.

Then, just as the Green Lantern was about to lose hope of ever being able to destroy an Angel herself, the thin bolt of her willpower's manifest got through, punching a small hole through the shield and then through the Angel itself. The spider-like beast hissed and chattered in agony, but it didn't let up its assault for a moment. Obviously, the attack had not hit anything vital.

"Yes!" she shouted triumphantly, and immediately got to work capitalizing on her small but essential victory.

Rather than cutting off the beam, the Green Lantern transformed it, not allowing the crucial hole to close. The energy blast became a pair of surgical retractors (or, as the Green Lantern would have described them, "those things they used in that medical drama I used to watch to hold the guys getting surgery open"), which expanded the hole to a much more respectable size and prevented it from closing.

Unfortunately, the Green Lantern realized abruptly that she'd been dedicating too much of her concentration to rendering the mighty Angel vulnerable. Her decoys were all gone, though whether the Angel had destroyed them or if they'd just faded away because she hadn't been willing them to continue to exist, she didn't know.

However, it was a rather moot point, since, either way, she had a flood of acid shooting through the air straight at her.

It was too close for the Green Lantern to be able to dodge this time; she'd noticed it too late. She hadn't felt confident enough to try and actually block the spray of deadly fluid with her ring, but now she had no choice.

The Green Lantern brought her ring up and reacted without even consciously thinking out what she was about to do. Emerald light shot out, creating a construct. However, instead of the shield that she probably would have willed into being if she'd had more than a fraction of a second to think about it, the construct took the form of a funnel.

The acid all shot into the large end of the jade funnel, and before it could shoot out the smaller end, Green Lantern added a tube to it, barely doing so quickly enough for the acid to flow into it.

The tube twisted around, redirecting the acid spray into the direction from which it had come. With a huge, gaping hole in its AT field, the Angel was defenseless against having its own acid shot back at it.

The deadly liquid splashed down onto the Angel's arachnid body and it released a horrible, chattering screech of agony, this one much louder and more intense than the one it had uttered before. Great clouds of smoke rose up from its body, momentarily obscuring the Green Lantern's sight of it entirely.

Seconds later, the smoke had cleared enough to let her see it, and despite her hatred of the Angels, she had to wince. The upper layer of flesh on the top of it had been eaten away by the acid, exposing bright pink flesh below, and most of its eyes had been utterly ruined. It was writhing about in obvious agony, its enormous legs moving in quick, jerky actions.

Any reflexive sympathy she might have felt for the Angel was quickly dispelled, and she wasted no more time in moving to finish her enemy off. She formed a construct of a green progressive knife, just like the one that Unit One was equipped with, and then plunged it right into the center of the wounded beast, where she assumed the core was.

Her assumption was apparently correct, because after releasing one final scream of pain, the Angel collapsed and was perfectly still.

However, the Green Lantern wasn't about to fly off without making certain that she'd won. "Ring," she said, "is it dead?"

_"Affirmative,"_ it answered.

"Good," she said, then took off, flying back to the city.

It didn't hit her immediately, or all at once, which was probably because she was still wired on adrenaline and her multiple brushes with death. However, as the tension began to leave her muscles and her heartbeat slowed to a more normal pace, it began to dawn on her.

She had slain an Angel. She had done it all by herself, not through teenage proxies, with the abilities granted to her by her power ring.

The Green Lantern released a gale of triumphant laughter and did a few loop-de-loops through the air as she headed back to Tokyo-3, feeling a rush of deep satisfaction that simply orchestrating the battles against the Angels had never brought to her.

Vengeance truly was sweet.

"Look out, Angels!" she cried out as she soared through the sky. "All the rest of you that come here, beware my power! Green Lantern's light!"

* * *

Meanwhile, Shinji and Asuka crashed out of a ventilation shaft, landing painfully on the floor in one of the EVA cages. A moment later, Rei gracefully jumped down, landing lightly on her feet.

"We're here!" Asuka announced unnecessarily, quickly untangling herself from Shinji and getting to her feet.

"Good," Akagi said. "Then I guess we're ready if we need to launch the EVA Units for some reason. Uh, until the power comes back on, you three can just have a seat or something."

Shinji and Asuka were two very different people, to put it mildly, so their minds very rarely functioned on the same wavelength. However, in this one instance, the exact same thought went simultaneously through their heads:

_I climbed through the air ducts for_ this?!

* * *

Power was eventually restored to NERV headquarters, allowing the Ops Director, who had (allegedly) been trapped inside an elevator for hours, to finally escape.

Not long after this, the confusion started.

The JSDF contacted NERV to reluctantly give the obligatory congratulations for defeating another Angel, as well as to demand to know why the quasi-paramilitary agency had decided to perform a communications blackout without warning.

Much as NERV, and the Commanders in particular, would have liked to have claimed credit for the latest victory against the Angels, they simply didn't have enough information to be able to lie convincingly about it. As a result, they were forced to admit that they hadn't even known an Angel had made an appearance, much less destroyed it themselves.

Of course, if NERV hadn't destroyed the Angel, that inevitably brought up the question of who had.

The list of suspects was short and entirely composed of females.

In the end, no one reached any firm conclusions about who exactly got to put the death of the Ninth Angel into their personal win column, though Makoto would gladly tell anyone who'd listen that it was probably the Green Lantern.

Nothing much came of the whole strange incident, at least not from the brass's side. The JSDF and JSSDF gleefully made noises about how NERV was useless next to a group of girls in colorful costumes, and SEELE issued a few (mostly empty) threats to Gendo, warning him not to allow NERV to appear so impotent in the future.

All in all, it was business as usual for the big boys. However, in the days following the battle, Misato came to an important decision.

* * *

Gendo Ikari's secretary was a crone. There was simply no other way to accurately describe her. Ancient and hunched, she kept her snow white hair tied in a professional but severe bun, and her lined face seemed locked in a stern, scolding expression that inevitably reminded nearly everyone who saw her of some particularly unpleasant teacher or another. Her eyes were as cunning as a cat's, but completely joyless.

Some people in NERV whispered that, not long ago, she had been young and attractive; basically, the typical kind of woman that powerful men liked to employ as their secretaries. However, the story went, being stationed just outside the Commander's dark and cavernous office—which was commonly referred to as "the lair" by the average member of NERV when Ikari wasn't around—had rapidly sucked both the youth and happiness from the woman.

It was utterly ridiculous, of course, but it was strangely easy to believe when you were right in front of her. That Misato couldn't remember the secretary's name for the life of her wasn't helping matters, either.

"Hello, Captain Katsuragi, what can I do for you?" she asked Misato, in a tone that suggested she'd just as happily knife the younger woman as listen to whatever request she might have.

"I'd like to see the Commander, if he's free," Misato said.

Without another word to Misato, the old woman picked up the phone and rapidly dialed an extension. After a clipped conversation, she turned back to the purple haired woman and said, "You can go inside."

Misato nodded and thanked the woman as politely as she could, then pushed open the large doors to Ikari's office and stepped inside. She instantly felt a chill as she crossed the threshold, closing the door behind her. The room's size, its lack of proper lighting, and the strange and vaguely foreign-seeming designs on the floor all combined to make the Commander's office possess an extremely intimidating atmosphere.

_The man probably likes it,_ she thought. _Most people are probably more obedient when they're in here, because they're afraid._

She fingered the currently invisible ring on her finger, remembering what it had said to her: _"You have the ability to overcome great fear."_

Vice Commander Fuyutski was at Gendo's side, as usual. He greeted her as she approached the desk that sat at the far end of the room.

"Captain Katsuragi, what brings you here?" he asked.

Part of her barely able to believe what she was doing, Misato took a deep breath through her nose and said, "Sirs, I am hereby resigning my position as the Tactical Operations Director of NERV, effective immediately."

"What? Why?" Fuyutski demanded, obviously surprised, and even Gendo's eyes widened briefly.

Misato hung her head slightly. "I believe that my emotions got the better of me at Mount Asuma, which caused me to issue reckless orders," she said formally. "I don't trust myself not to do the same thing in the future, and I don't want to get any of the Children killed in action because my judgment is impaired."

This, of course, was a massive lie. While her actions (as well as Hyuga's words) at Mount Asuma had bothered her, she never would have considered resigning over them. Under normal circumstances, she would have simply drowned these concerns in Yebisu until they went away.

However, now she possessed a weapon that she knew could hurt the Angels, and she didn't want to sit back at the command center when she could be doing real good at the front, and be personally taking her revenge against the Angels.

No matter how she tried to figure out a way, it was simply impossible for her to be in two places at once. She'd had to choose whether to fight this war as the Green Lantern or as the Operations Director. In the end, she'd come to the conclusion that while there were tacticians aplenty across the world, the Earth had only one Green Lantern.

"I wish you'd reconsider," Fuyutski said after a long pause. "You realize that you'll be leaving some very big shoes to fill."

"I don't think it will be so difficult to replace me, sir, but thank you for saying as much," Misato replied.

"Do you have any idea what kind of nightmare you leaving NERV will generate?" Fuyutski asked. "You're in too deeply to just quit."

_This one knows too much!_ Misato couldn't help but think, and resisted the urge to smirk.

"Sirs, respectfully, I don't wish to resign from NERV, I just don't want to be the one calling the shots when the Evangelions go into combat," she said. "I don't want to abandon all of my duties. It would sadden me, if I were discharged from NERV, and the Children were taken from my care as a result."

Gendo and Fuyutski traded a quick glance.

"Very well," Gendo said, speaking up for the first time. "Your position in NERV is changed to tactical consultant. You will advise the new Operations Director as requested."

"Yes, sir," Misato said. "If I may ask, do you have any idea who you'll appoint to the Ops Director post?"

"Not at present," Gendo lied. "Is that all?"

"It is, sir," Misato said.

She saluted and then walked out. The Commanders waited until she'd shut the door behind her to say anything.

"It looks like we overestimated her hatred of the Angels," Fuyutski observed dryly.

"Perhaps," Gendo replied, "though I suspect it was more a case of underestimating her bleeding heart. She's grown too attached to the Second and Third. It appears that it was a mistake to allow her to take them in."

"Well, nothing to be done about it now, I suppose," Fuyutski said. "So, who do you intend to replace her with?"

Behind his folded hands, Gendo smiled.

* * *

Author's Notes: And so the first Angel to face the wrath of the new Green Lantern falls, and Misato decides where she wants to be in this war. Now the question is, who will the new Ops Director be? Tune in next time to find out.

Anyway, not much else to say, except sorry that it's a little short. It seemed like, up until this point, the addition of the ring didn't seem like something that would be affecting the other characters all that much.

Zenn1, as someone who majored in Journalism in college (though, as you can probably guess, I never covered court stories, otherwise I'd have known the difference between "summon" and "summons"), let me tell you tell you that I understand your need to point out that mistake perfectly. I'll do my best not to repeat it further.

Ryousanki, I realize that one chapter might not seem like very long to get the hang of something like a GL power ring, but the comics have led me to believe that the learning curve isn't very steep on those things. At least, not on the basics. Also, the clone/shadow/whatever was just something I never really considered for this story. I've admittedly been kind of leery on the concept ever since orionpax09 started using it in "The Fourth Degree" but it's mostly because that sort of thing is pretty much just beyond the power of the ring. One of the few hard restrictions on it is that it can't create life, so the clone is out. And the constructs are never really independent of the ring wielder, so the "shadow" just isn't really feasible.

NefCanuck, the ability of the ring to alter the wearer's appearance always struck me as a bit too limited for someone be able to pull something like that off. Plus, somehow it just doesn't feel like the sort of thing Misato would do to me. Besides, I've already done the Shinji with fourteen-year-old Misato thing anyway.

Popkov, wood was the weakness of Alan Scott, the golden age Green Lantern. When the silver age of comics rolled around, DC decided to re-imagine a lot of their characters whose books had been cancelled. The weakness of the Green Lantern was changed as a result of this.

Anyway, thanks as always to all my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta readers. Now for a little fun.

* * *

Omake

Obvious

"Damn it, Misato!" Asuka roared as she approached the purple haired woman. "Losing to Shinji is bad enough, but being upstaged by _you?!_ You're not even supposed to be able to kill the Angels at all!"

Misato blinked dumbly, just wondering how the hell Asuka could have known that she was the one who'd ended the Ninth. Then she quickly regained herself and said, "I don't know what you're talking about, Asuka. I was trapped in the elevator the whole time!"

"Oh, don't give me that!" Asuka exclaimed.

Before Misato could force out another denial, Shinji rushed up over to the two ladies. "Misato," he said breathlessly, "why didn't you tell me that you're the Green Lantern?"

"What?!" Misato squawked. "No! I'm not the Green Lantern! Where did you get such a crazy idea from?"

Asuka took her cell phone out of her pocket. "Somebody got a picture of you and put it on the internet," she explained, handing the cell phone over to her guardian.

With a trembling hand, Misato took the phone and looked at the thing's little screen. However, instead of the picture of her in the middle of transforming that she'd feared, there was a shot of her fighting the Ninth Angel. It had been taken toward the end of the battle, and it showed her using the funnel and tube she'd created with the ring to send the monster's acid back at it.

Misato suddenly felt a good deal calmer. There was a phrase for this, and that phrase was "plausible deniability."

"That woman's wearing a mask," Misato said. "She could be any number of people. I don't even know why you two leapt to the conclusion that she's me."

Her charges shared a look for a few seconds before turning back to her.

"Misato," Shinji said slowly, "the reason that we think you're the Green Lantern is because—"

"Her—_your_—weapon of choice against that Angel was a _giant beer bong_!" Asuka finished.

Blinking, Misato took a closer look at the picture displayed on the cell phone screen. She hadn't even realized it at the time, but the thing she'd used to beat the Angel was indeed a ring construct of a giant beer bong.

_Huh…I guess I shouldn't exactly be _surprised_ that that's where my mind went when I was under pressure,_ she thought. _But still…_

She looked at her two wards. Asuka's eyes were full of smoldering anger and resentment. Shinji's were full of amazement and admiration. Neither had a drop of uncertainty in their gaze.

"Okay," she said with a sigh. "I'm the Green Lantern. You caught me."


	4. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Three: **No Fear, No Surrender

It was a completely normal dinner in the Katsuragi apartment. Misato had already down three cans of Yebisu, Asuka had lodged her nightly complaint about Japanese food, and Shinji was just eating quietly. Nothing could have been more ordinary for the slightly dysfunctional, impromptu family.

Yes, all was as it usually was, until Misato took her spoon and rapped it against her empty beer can a few times, promptly getting the attention of both her wards, who looked at her curiously.

"Shinji, Asuka, I have an announcement to make," Misato said. "You're going to hear about it pretty soon at NERV, but I figured it would be best if I told you first."

Both EVA pilots were silent, waiting for whatever declaration their guardian had to make. It was unusual for Misato to get quite so formal when she wasn't at work and being the Operations Director.

"Earlier today, I went to the Commander's office, and I resigned my position as the Operations Director," Misato said.

"What?" Asuka asked, shocked.

"Why?" Shinji asked at the very same moment.

"I just didn't feel that I was in the right… state of mind while I was commanding the last few battles. It's hard to explain to people who have never had to command other people in combat," Misato said.

She hoped that her two wards wouldn't demand very much in the way of an explanation; she had no intention of telling them the truth, but she didn't want to lie to them any more than was absolutely necessary.

"I'm haven't left NERV, and I'm still going to be your guardian," Misato added quickly, before either Shinji or Asuka could say anything. "They're keeping me on as a tactical consultant. You haven't gotten rid of me that easily."

Shinji and Asuka traded a long, shocked look, neither of them knowing just how to react to this bit of news.

Finally, Shinji spoke up. "Well, if that's what you want, Misato," he said slowly, as though he was still half-expecting to wake up any second now.

"It is," she said as earnestly as she could. "I feel like I've had a great weight lifted off my shoulders."

"So, do you know who the new Operations Director is going to be?" Shinji asked.

Misato shook her head. "Nope. I asked the Commander, but he said he had to decide," she answered. "I'm sure he'll fill the post quickly, though. It's not a spot he can really leave empty for very long."

"Oh," was all the answer Shinji could muster, still feeling rather shocked.

Misato's gaze flicked over to Asuka. She hadn't known how the German would react to the news that she'd left the Ops Director post, but she had expected Asuka's response, whatever it was exactly, would be rather loud, much like Asuka herself. However, the redhead was just staring at her food, a pensive expression on her face, which confused Misato.

_No point in questioning small favors,_ she decided with a mental shrug, and went back to eating.

The rest of dinner was a rather quiet affair after Misato's announcement.

* * *

Later that evening, Misato was standing on her apartment's veranda, looking out at the night sky. She'd never concerned herself with stargazing very much in the past, feeling that there were more than enough problems on Earth to deal with. Since a man had crashed out of the heavens and given her a ring that gave her powers rivaling those of the Angels and the EVA's, however, she'd found that the night sky could command a little more of her attention.

The screen door between the veranda and the opened, and Misato turned. For some reason, she was surprised to see that it was Asuka and not Shinji who'd come out.

"Hello, Misato," Asuka said as she closed the door behind her.

"Hi," Misato replied simply.

Asuka walked over next to Misato and then leaned on the railing, looking out at the city. She was silent for a long, long moment.

"Why did you quit from being the Operations Director?" Asuka asked finally.

"I told you," Misato replied. "I didn't feel like I had the right state of mind for someone commanding a life or death battle."

"I don't buy that," Asuka said bluntly. "Did it have anything to do with what happened at Mount Asuma?"

"What?"

"Mount Asuma," Asuka repeated. "Don't think I don't know how freaked out a lot of people were when you ordered me to dive beyond the D-type equipment's limits. But I agreed with you that not stopping was the right move, so if that's the reason why you left, you can just stop being an idiot, march your ass up to the Commander's office tomorrow morning, and tell him that you want the job back."

Misato couldn't prevent a small smirk from appearing on her face. "Why Asuka, are you actually saying that you want me to hang onto the post?" she asked as innocently as she could.

Even in the dim light of the moon, Misato could clearly see on the redhead's face that Asuka was extremely at being forced to come out and say it. The purple haired woman nearly laughed, and the only thing that stopped her was the knowledge that Asuka would instantly get angry and storm off in a huff if she did.

"What I'm _saying_ is that there are a lot of really stupid tacticians out there in the world," Asuka answered. "And seeing as how NERV can't seem to do the sensible thing and let me command the battles from the field, we could do a lot worse than have you calling the shots. I'd rather not roll the dice again."

_You just can't come out and tell me that you actually trust me, can you?_ Misato thought. _And Rits and I called _Shinji_ the hedgehog._

"I'm sure the next Operations Director will be competent," Misato said. "I'll say one thing for Commander Ikari: that man has never been willing to tolerate idiots. Besides, I'll still be around. It's not like I'm leaving the Operations Department entirely."

"You never answered my question," Asuka said, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Why did you quit being the Operations Director?"

_Damn,_ Misato thought, displeased that her attempt at directing the conversation away from that had failed.

Though she probably should have known that Asuka was too clever to be misdirected in such a manner. It was easy to forget because of how immature the redhead often behaved, but Asuka was extremely intelligent.

"It doesn't have anything to do with you, Asuka, or with Mount Asuma, not really," Misato said. "I hate the Angels, and I've been letting that get the better of me. The last couple of battles, I haven't even _thought_ about the risks I've asked you and the others to take. I just wanted to kill the Angels so badly that I became blind to everything else. And that's a _really_ bad thing for someone in a command position to do. It can lead to giving orders that get people killed needlessly. I didn't want that to happen, so I stepped down."

Misato felt guilt twisting in her gut as she delivered this little speech, which she'd been trying to avoid the need for ever since she'd informed her wards about her decision to leave the Ops Director post. While her failure to consider Asuka's safety at Mount Asuma had troubled her, she never would have quit over it.

She felt like a huge fraud, but she wasn't about to reveal her secret, especially not to Asuka. So far as Tokyo-3's more…unusual denizens were concerned, the German ran strangely hot and cold, applauding a few and detesting all the others. Misato had never been able to figure out any real rhyme or reason to whatever method Asuka used to judge whether any given superwoman deserved her praise or her scorn, so she was far from keen on the idea of telling the German about her new role as the Green Lantern.

"All right," Asuka said, jolting Misato from her thoughts. "If you're really committed to this, I guess I can't stop you. But if the new Operations Director is some _idioten_, I expect you to keep him from ordering us to do anything stupid, chain of command be damned."

Misato smirked. "I'll do what I can."

Asuka nodded. "I'll hold you to that."

That said, the redhead opened the screen door and slipped back inside the apartment, leaving Misato once more alone with her thoughts and the stars.

* * *

The next day, Commander Ikari called all the senior staff and the Evangelion pilots into his cavernous office. Strangely, having so many people present somewhat reduced the intimidation factor of "the lair," until it was almost tolerable.

_Maybe that's why it's so rare for him to call in more than one or two people at a time,_ Misato mused darkly.

"I'm sure a few of you can guess why I've called this meeting," Gendo began once everyone he'd summoned had arrived. "However, most of you don't know the circumstances that brought this about, so first, I need to inform you all that Captain Katsuragi has left the Operations Director post."

There were a number of surprised looks and questions in response to that announcement, but Commander Ikari cleared his throat and everyone took the hint and immediately fell silent again.

"She has decided to remain with us as a tactical consultant," Gendo said, folding his hands before his face in his usual manner. "However, the Operations Department cannot function without a real leader, so it has fallen upon me to appoint one."

A pregnant pause followed, everyone instantly realizing that he was about to appoint a new Operations Director, and that it would probably be someone in the room.

_Maybe it'll be me,_ Makoto thought hopefully. _Hey, then I'd get to spend a lot of time with Misato-san!_

_Please don't be me,_ Maya thought. _I only took that command training because I was told it would look good on my resume!_

"I've decided," Gendo said, "that the new Operations Director should be…Mr. Kaji."

All eyes immediately turned to the long haired man.

"Him?"

"Him?!"

"Me?"

"That's correct, Mr. Kaji," Gendo said. "NERV will bestow the rank of captain to you as soon as the paperwork clears."

"But, sir, do you really think I'm the best person for this job?" Kaji protested. "I've never had any formal training in tactics."

Gendo smiled. It wasn't an easy thing to notice, with the way his hands were concealing so much of his face, but Kaji saw it.

"There is little that one can learn from a course in tactics that could help in this war," the Commander said. "Against a foe like the Angels, the knowledge of why the Greeks were able to hold of the Persians so long at Thermopylae is useless."

"That may be," Kaji conceded reluctantly, "but still—"

"What an Operations Director truly needs is the ability to come up with unorthodox and effective plans," Gendo interrupted. "Much like the one you devised for our use against the Seventh Angel."

Kaji knew when he was boxed into a corner. "If you really believe I'm the best man for the job, I'd be honored to step into the Operations Director position."

"Good," Gendo said. "You start immediately."

"Yes, sir," Kaji said.

Despite himself, the spy had to admire the brilliance of the Commander's move. Since Misato wasn't leaving, Ikari could put just about anyone he wanted into the Operations Director's chair without having to really worry about not having a crazy but brilliant plan available when it became necessary; NERV wouldn't suffer because he had been given the job, but Kaji simply wouldn't have the time to go digging for information that he once had. Disappearing for long stretches of time wasn't exactly kosher when you might be called upon to command a battle for the fate of the planet at any moment.

It also probably didn't hurt anything from the Commander's perspective that he was one of very few people who could probably control the Second Child.

"I expect all of you to adjust to this change quickly," Gendo addressed the room. "That's all. You're dismissed."

The group of NERV personnel all seemed to trade a collective look with one another, then obediently filed out of the huge room.

A light buzz of conversation started the moment the doors had closed behind them.

"Captain Katsuragi, why did you resign?" Makoto asked at once.

"Personal reasons," Misato replied, tired of lying. "I'd rather not discuss it."

"So," Kaji said, turning to Misato. "It looks like we'll be spending a lot of together in the future. In a professional capacity, of course."

He smiled at her then, and he was a handsome bastard when he smiled, damn him.

"I'm so looking forward to it," she replied, sarcasm dripping from every word.

_Remember, Katsuragi, it would only end in tears again,_ she told herself. _Don't give in. It wouldn't go well this time, either._

Now if she could just keep repeating _that_, she might have a chance at not repeating the mistake she'd made back in college.

* * *

"The Green Lantern," Gendo mused.

A few hours after the appointment of the new Operations Director, the Commander and Vice Commander sat in the cavernous office of the former, both of them gazing up at a holographic projection of the city's new super-heroine. Of course, since no one had yet captured the woman on film, it wasn't really her image that floated above Gendo's desk. Instead, it was a two-dimensional projection of an artist's depiction.

"That's what they call her," Fuyutski said, "or, if the tabloids are to be believed, what she calls herself."

"What name she goes by is irrelevant," Gendo said. "She is a threat to the scenario."

"That's assuming she really was the one who killed the last Angel," the Vice Commander pointed out. "There's no real proof of that. In fact, it's possible she's not even real. I wouldn't put it beyond the tabloid media to invent a new superwoman when sales start flagging."

"Perhaps," Gendo conceded. "It's too early to begin focusing any significant portion of our resources on her, considering the various other difficulties that have arisen."

Fuyutski nodded in earnest agreement. There were already enough obstacles in the way of Instrumentality that they had to deal with. Trying to figure out how to counter difficulties they weren't even positive were real yet would just serve as a distraction they couldn't afford.

"However," Gendo continued, "a little research would do no harm. I want you to tell Dr. Akagi to have the MAGI run a search for the symbol that she wears on her chest, and for anyone calling themselves the Green Lantern. I also want NERV to know where that cult leader can be found at all times."

"Yes, sir," Fuyutski replied, hoping Gendo was able to keep his efforts to combat the Green Lantern at this level until the situation warranted more.

* * *

As it turned out, Misato needn't have worried quite so much about what prolonged exposure to her old flame would do to her.

Kaji's first act as Operations Director, after claiming Misato's office, was to decree that his tactical consultant would handle half of the paperwork that required someone of captain's rank or higher to complete. Needless to say, this hardened her heart toward the long-haired man considerably.

Of course, if _she_ had ever had a tactical consultant working under her, Misato would have dumped at _least_ half the paperwork on the poor soul, but she somehow failed to mention this as she was righteously complaining to Shinji at the end of the week.

"And another thing, NERV sort of gave me a pay cut without actually giving me a pay cut," Misato continued, finally switching topics after going on about Kaji for over ten minutes.

"How is that?" asked Shinji, who had been patiently listening to his guardian rant while he went about the task of tidying up the kitchen.

"They're paying me the exact same amount, but a big chunk of my paycheck is now 'stipends' for supporting you and Asuka," she grumbled. "But I never saw any stipend before!"

Shinji nodded. It sort of made sense. Cold though his father might be at times (okay, actually _all_ of the time), the man wouldn't want the guardian of his son and the Second Child being unable to feed them.

"I'm just glad that you don't have to work as much overtime as you did before," he said.

Shinji made this comment with such simple sincerity that Misato found herself almost absurdly touched. Despite the number of problems and the amount of garbage he had to put up with in his life, he still somehow had it in him to be concerned for her. And he could even express it after she'd made him endure her venting to him for several minutes, something for which Misato suddenly found herself feeling guilty.

"Hey, Shinji, what are you up to?" she asked him.

"Me?" he asked, sounding rather surprised by the question. "N-Nothing really. Why?"

"I was just wondering," she replied. "I know that Asuka went out this evening, but you don't seem to get out of the apartment very much, except when you go to the arcade with Toji and Kensuke."

Shinji looked away, appearing almost ashamed. "I'm not nearly as social as Asuka," he said quietly.

"Hey," Misato said, "why don't we go out and do something?"

"Huh?"

"Well, you've got nothing to do tonight, and I've got nothing to do tonight, so why don't we do something together instead of being bored separately?" Misato asked.

Shinji hesitated, trying to figure out how to say no without coming off as a jerk. It wasn't exactly that he regarded spending the evening in his room listening to his SDAT as so exciting, but it was… safe. Predictable. Routine. Something he couldn't screw up or offend anyone by doing.

"What would we even do?" he asked.

Misato shrugged. "We'll figure it out," she said.

"Uh, I don't know," Shinji said. "It's a school night."

Misato couldn't help but laugh at this response. "You do realize that you're the teenager, and I'm the guardian, right?" she asked. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you've gotten our roles mixed up or something."

"Uh, I…"

"Come on, Shinji-kun, I'm not going to take you bar hopping, and we're not going to be out all night," Misato said. "I know I come off as a crazy party girl sometimes, but I'm not _that_ irresponsible."

"Well, okay," Shinji relented, now out of objections.

"Great, come on," Misato said, leading him out the apartment.

"Uh, shouldn't you change before you go out?" Shinji asked, gesturing to his guardian's current attire.

Misato was in her usual "loafing around the house" outfit, which consisted of very short denim shorts, a tank top, and no bra.

"We're not going to the Ritz, Shinji-kun," Misato replied cheerfully as she grabbed her keys. "Now come on."

_Why do I have the feeling I'm going to regret this?_ Shinji wondered as he followed her down to the street.

"Hop in, Shinji-kun!" Misato said enthusiastically as she got behind the wheel of her Renault Alpine.

_Oh, that's why,_ he thought, getting into the passenger seat and made extra sure his seatbelt was fastened securely.

With a grin, Misato started the car, then gunned the engine as she pulled out with a screech of tires and got out on the streets of Tokyo-3, the usual cacophony of car horns heralding the self-styled Queen of the Road's entrance.

"So," Shinji said after taking a moment to regain his composure, "where are we going?"

"I don't know," Misato replied, turning her mind to the question.

This certainly wasn't the first time she'd gone out with no destination in mind, and experience told her that, more often than not, such outings eventually led to hitting one of the old fallback places to have fun. With Ritsuko, that usually meant a bar or a club. With Shinji… well, she wasn't sure what that meant.

_That little observation platform I took him to that time is really only cool when the city's about to transform,_ Misato mused. _I guess we could go to the arcade, but he goes there all the time with his friends._

Misato frowned. She wasn't about to let the evening become even more lackluster for their venturing out of the house; she did have a reputation to maintain, after all. But now that she thought about it, she couldn't immediately come up with any activity they would both enjoy.

"Misato, watch the road!" Shinji abruptly shouted.

The purple haired woman pulled her attention back to the street and then casually turned the steering wheel, putting her car back into the proper lane.

"Hey, I have an idea!" she exclaimed suddenly.

"That's good," Shinji replied in a small voice, looking strangely pale for some reason. "What is it?"

Misato smiled.

* * *

"Mini-golf?" Shinji asked a few minutes later as they got out of the car.

"Yup," Misato replied cheerfully as she locked the doors. "Why, you have something against mini-golf?"

"No," he replied. "It's just that I wasn't exactly expecting it."

He wasn't exactly sure where he'd been expecting Misato to take them, but he could definitely say that a mini-golf course wasn't it.

"Sometimes what you don't expect is the best thing possible," Misato said in such a positively sagely tone that Shinji couldn't help but snicker.

"Where did you read that?" he asked.

"Probably a fortune cookie," Misato answered without missing a beat. "Or maybe the internet. Who cares? Let's go!"

Her enthusiasm was infectious, and, almost in spite of himself, Shinji found himself smiling as he followed her toward the modest complex.

Misato bounced up to the entrance and addressed the teenage boy who was minding the counter. "Two clubs and two golf balls, please," she said.

"Uh… uh, sure," the clerk replied dumbly.

The guy was _blatantly_ staring at Misato's chest, and Shinji found himself fervently wishing that she'd at least bothered to put on a bra before they'd left the apartment. The guy wasn't even trying to disguise the fact that he was undressing Misato with his eyes.

When the young clerk began to reach blindly behind the counter for the requested items, absolutely refusing to pry his gaze off the voluptuous older woman for even the brief moment it would take him to do his job, Shinji couldn't take it any longer. Acting more on impulse than anything else, he cleared his throat very loudly.

The older teenager turned to look at Shinji, and then a confused, incredulous frown appeared on his face. Shinji couldn't be sure if the older boy was shocked that someone as young and unimpressive as himself was in the company of a woman like Misato, or if he was surprised that Shinji was trying to warn him off ogling said woman, despite the age and size disparity between the two boys.

Either way, the guy seemed to realize himself and had the good grace to look abashed at his behavior, if not intimidated by Shinji. He pulled his eyes off of Misato's curvy form and got the requested items, placing them on the counter along with a scorecard and a short pencil.

"That'll be 1,000 yen," the clerk said.

Misato cheerfully handed over the money, having either not noticed that the guy had been nakedly staring at her or, more likely, not having cared about it in the slightest. She laughed as she took a look at the golf balls.

"Here," she said, tossing one to Shinji, "this will be yours."

He fumbled with it slightly before catching it, but at least he managed not to drop the thing. Shinji groaned as he opened his palm to allow himself to see it. The ball was purple with a green stripe running around the middle of it.

"Even on my off time, I can't escape it," he muttered, though in reality he was more amused than anything.

After all, he would have gone crazy a _long_ time ago if he couldn't laugh inwardly at the smaller bits of bad luck he tended to somehow draw to himself like sugar drew ants.

"Guess not," Misato said, handing him one of the golf clubs.

As though in an act of mercy, she gave him the one with the blue grip rather than the one with the violet grip. He appreciated it.

The two of them headed over to the first hole, which was a simple, straight shot with the slowly rotating blades of a miniature windmill serving as the only obstacle between the tee and the hole.

"Ever played this before, Shinji-kun?" Misato asked.

"No," he answered. "I'll probably be bad at it."

"Who cares if you are?" she replied. "We're just here to have fun. Besides, this game is _easy_! Here, let me show you."

She bent over to place her ball in the proper place. Shinji tried not to stare at her rear as she did this, truly he did, but with her in those tight little denim shorts of hers, it was simply too much to ask of a teenage male such as himself.

By the time she stood up, Shinji was far more inclined to cut the guy at the counter a little slack for his display of naked lechery earlier.

"Okay," Misato said, "there's really nothing to this. First, you hold your club like this. Then, you line up your shot and swing."

She demonstrated, striking her golf ball solidly. However, it went off at an angle, banging on the short walls that enclosed the first leg of the course, then struck part of the little windmill, missing the tunnel that led to the hole entirely. Eventually, it rolled to a stop roughly three inches away from the tee.

Misato turned to look at Shinji and glared at him. "Don't say anything," she said, though there was a playful edge to her scowl that even he couldn't fail to notice.

The Third Child just bit his lower lip to keep himself from sniggering and raised his hands in a placating gesture. Apparently satisfied, Misato turned back to the game.

Five swings later, she had finally managed to get the little ball into the first little hole.

"Okay, maybe this game isn't as easy as I remember it," she said as she took her ball back. "Still, remember that the real objective here is just to enjoy yourself."

Shinji nodded and placed his disturbingly Unit One-colored ball on the tee, then he stood up straight, lined up his shot, and swung gently.

The ball rolled straight forward, managed to miss the rotating windmill blades, went through the tunnel, and plopped neatly into the hole.

Misato laughed. "Beginner's luck," she said. "C'mon, let's move on."

* * *

"I'm not sure this is such a good idea," Hiko said as he regarded the pistol that sat in his lap.

His friend and companion Koichi rolled his eyes in response to this. "Don't wuss out on me now, man," he said. "There's nothing to this. In and out in under ten minutes. Piece of cake."

The two men were sitting in a very old, very beaten-up car. The car itself was sitting by the curb, right by the "border" that separated the upscale part of Tokyo-3 from the depressed area of the city.

It wasn't unusual for big cities to have both affluent sections and slums, but in the so-called "City of Tomorrow" the contrast was uncommonly stark. Remaining bits of what had once been Hakone, which was hard hit by Second Impact, stood right next to the young, modern structures in many places.

"I don't know," Hiko said. "The cops actually give a damn if we pull this kind of thing in the rich people's places."

"That's what the ski masks and the gloves are for, dumbass," Koichi responded. "So they can't see our faces or use fingerprints to track us down."

"There are also… other things that could happen," Hiko said.

Koichi released a harsh burst of laughter. "You think one of the city's _superwomen_ is gonna show up to bust us?"

"It's not like it's never been know to happen," Hiko replied stubbornly.

"Listen, I am _not_ going to drive all the way to Tokyo-2 to do this," Koichi said firmly. "This damn bucket of bolts probably couldn't make the trip. Besides, there are probably dozens—hundreds—of crimes that happen every day in this city without one of the super bitches showing up to bust it. Running into one of them is like… like being struck by lightning. It really sucks if it happens to you, but odds are, it never will."

Hiko hesitated, still having doubts.

Koichi sighed. "Look, man, we pull this job, we're set for months, at least." He said. "The people over on the rich side of the city… they don't give a damn about us. They were too damn cheap to rebuild the whole city, and the part we live in can just go to hell for all they care. There's no damn work where we live, but nobody in the good part of the city would ever think about hiring one of 'our kind.' So we don't have the money to buy _food_ most of the time. My neighbor died because she couldn't afford to get herself _penicillin._ She died, man, and none of the rich assholes over there ever gave a damn.

"Meanwhile, just to add insult to injury, they built a place right by the border that's there purely for them to go to have fun," he continued. "While we scrape to just to be able to _survive_ and don't always make it, they drop money for _recreation._" He spat the last word as though it was an obscenity.

"So?" Hiko said.

"So?" Koichi echoed. "So today, I say we show those rich jackasses that it's not nice to refuse to share."

Hiko was silent for a moment. Then he turned to Koichi and said, "Let's roll."

Koichi smiled and turned the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered and coughed for a bit, but eventually it started. "Knew you'd come to see it my way."

* * *

"Another hole in one!" Misato groaned, covering her eyes with her palm, even as she smiled.

Shinji blushed as he went to retrieve his golf ball. "I've only gotten three so far," he said modestly.

"That's three more than I've gotten," Misato said as she checked their scorecard. "You're killing me here, Shinji-kun. You're a very multi-talented young man, you know that?"

He rolled his eyes, though the effect was somewhat spoiled by the humorous expression on his face. "Piloting, playing the cello, and mini-golfing. Yeah, I've got talent coming out my ears," he said sarcastically.

"And you can cook, don't forget about that," Misato said, wagging a finger like a teacher might.

"I'm not a very good cook," he protested.

"You're a lot better than I am," Misato replied.

_That's not exactly a big achievement,_ he thought. While it was true that he had the most culinary skill of anyone in the Katsuragi apartment, Shinji really tended to think of that as akin to a one-eyed man being king in the land of the blind.

However, since Misato took teasing even worse than he did, Shinji decided to hold his peace on that subject.

They moved onto the ninth hole. Shinji was able to sink the ball with three strokes less than it took Misato, which was about what he'd been averaging so far.

Even though the mini-golf course was far from bustling at the moment, a group of people were already at the tenth hole, forcing Misato and Shinji to stand and wait their turn.

"Misato?" Shinji spoke up after a few seconds.

"Yes, Shinji-kun?" she replied.

He suddenly wanted very badly to say "nothing" and to just continue the evening as they had been doing so far; he was having a really good time and didn't want to ruin it. Shinji found he actually preferred the relative tranquility of the mini-golf course to the loud sounds and flashing lights of the arcades, and he enjoyed the company of his guardian when she wasn't deliberately pressing all of his buttons by teasing him mercilessly.

That he was winning wasn't exactly hurting his evening, either.

However, there was a question that had been bugging him ever since Misato had dropped the bombshell that she was resigning from the Ops Director post over dinner not too long ago, and Shinji didn't think he'd again find an opportunity as good as this to ask her about it any time soon.

"When you told us you'd left the Operations Director job, you said you didn't think you were in the right state of mind for it anymore," Shinji said.

As he expected and feared, Misato's cheerful expression quickly grew more sober. "Yeah," she agreed.

"What exactly did you mean by that?" he asked.

"I meant that my desire to destroy the Angels was preventing me from looking at the battles as objectively as a good commander should," she answered.

Shinji nodded. This was about what he'd expected.

"But why do you think someone else wouldn't be affected that way by their emotions?" he asked. "Almost everyone who was around at the time lost someone in the Second Impact, and I can't imagine that most of the people who would have applied for the job wouldn't have their own axes to grind against the Angels."

Misato sighed. Shinji deserved to know, but that didn't mean she liked the idea of recounting the story any more because of it.

"Do you remember what you asked me, after the whole thing with the Jet Alone was over?" she asked, rather than respond to his question directly.

He frowned slightly but answered her. "I asked you how you could be that brave."

"Remember what I said?" she asked.

He nodded. "You told me that when you've lived through the worst thing in the world, when you've seen it with your own eyes, there's nothing left to be afraid of."

"Glad you've been listening," she said, forcing a weak smile. "I never did tell you what the worst thing in the world was, did I?"

He shook his head.

Leaning in close to him in an almost conspiratorial manner, she told him. She told him of what she had experienced at the bottom of the world when she was about his age. She told him about why she'd been there, about the dysfunctional relationship her father had had with the rest of his family, and how he'd made one last-ditch effort to patch things up with his daughter by taking her with him on his research expedition. She told him about what had _really_ happened on the day of Second Impact, from the perspective of the only surviving eye witness.

"When Adam first awoke, it was like… like an enormous bomb went off at the research site," Misato said, her eyes unfocused as she gazed into the past. "Everything was just chaos. People lay dead and dying everywhere. I still remembered how great patches of snow were stained red with blood, some of which was mine."

She pressed her palm to the area just below her breasts. For once, Shinji felt neither embarrassment nor excitement as he looked at Misato's chest.

"It was my father who saved me," she continued. "He was so… so weak in everyday life, but so strong at that time of disaster. I still don't understand how someone could be that way, but there it was. He got me into an escape pod and sent it jettisoning out to the sea, just before he died."

Shinji said nothing, looking raptly up at his guardian.

"I opened up the pod to get a look at what was going on, though today I wish to God that I hadn't," Misato said. "I saw Adam, the First Angel, stand up. He was a giant made of golden light, easily as big as an Evangelion, and with these four… wings that seemed to stretch up to forever." A pause and she added as she remembered the scene: "They kinda looked like a dragonfly's."

"And?" Shinji asked.

"And then he roared, and I saw the entire continent of Antarctica just… explode," Misato said. "Pieces of rock and ice went flying _everywhere_, and the ocean became as red as blood. And for the first and so far last time in my life, I was completely overcome by fear. I was paralyzed by it. I closed the hatch on my pod, then just curled up into a fetal position and shut down. I was in a near-catatonic state for years after that."

"My god," he breathed. "Misato…"

Shinji trailed off after this, finding himself at a complete loss for anything meaningful to say in response to her story. He never had been any good at comforting people.

She straightened back to her full height, and her eyes lost that unfocused look that made it obvious she was staring into the past. "So, that's why I think someone else would have better judgment than me when it comes to commanding the battles against the Angels," she said. "Maybe just about everyone was hurt by that monster, but nobody was as close to it as I was."

Shinji knew he really should say something at this point, but any appropriate words still refused to come to him.

Fortunately, he was saved from having to say anything by the man with the gun.

"Hello, boys and girls!" a guy in ski mask shouted as he barged onto the course. "This is a robbery. Everybody down on the floor. _Now!_"

The few people present on the course all immediately complied, laying down flat on their bellies.

"Good," the robber said. "If you all cooperate, this shouldn't take long, and nobody has to get hurt. Now—"

"GOD DAMN IT! Don't even _try_ to trip that silent alarm, you little punk!" another man, apparently the robber's accomplice, shouted from over by the counter.

The robber sighed. "That idiot better not kill that kid…" he muttered before turning his attention back to the hostages. "None of you move! I'll be right back!"

The guy walked off to go help his friend harass the teenage boy who was working at the counter.

_Well, these guys are real professionals,_ Misato thought saracastically, even as she chastised herself for bringing Shinji to a place so close to the bad part of the city.

"I'm going to try and find a place to hide," Misato whispered. "If I can get the element of surprise, I can take out those two idiots."

Of course, she didn't exactly need the element of surprise, not when she had the power ring sitting on her finger, but she didn't want to tell anyone that.

"No!" Shinji hissed. "It's too dangerous."

"He's right, lady," one of the other golfers added. "These guys aren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they do have guns."

"Guns they don't want to use, because that could add a murder or attempted murder charge if they ever get caught," Misato countered. "I'll be fine. I am in the military, you know. I've been in worse scrapes than this."

This said, she began to crawl away on her belly, not giving Shinji or anyone else an opportunity to protest further. The mini-golf course was outdoors, but there was a concrete wall all around it, to prevent people from just bypassing the clerk and coming in without paying. There were parts of this wall that contained small storage and maintenance rooms. If she could sneak into one of those without anyone seeing her going inside, she could have the ring put her in costume. After that, stopping the two punks as the Green Lantern would be a piece of cake.

She had almost made it when one of the robbers came back and spotted her.

"Hey!" he shouted. "What do you think you're doing?!"

The guy was trying to sound tough, but Misato could hear a slight waver in his voice. The hostages refusing to act meekly and cooperate wasn't part of his game plan, and he didn't quite know how to respond to it.

Realizing this, Misato jumped to her feet and peeled away, sprinting as fast as her legs could carry her to a fire exit.

_Damn it_, _if I knew that I'd be running this evening, I would have put on a bra!_ She thought, grimacing as she bounced all over the place.

"Stop, bitch!" the robber yelled and fired a shot.

The bullet didn't strike her, and it didn't strike the ground anywhere near her. Either the guy was a god-awful shot, or he didn't have the nerve to do more than fire into the air to try and scare her. Which one of these things was true didn't make a difference to Misato, as they both boded well for her chances.

"Stop!" the robber yelled again.

Ignoring him again, Misato finally reached the fire exit and pushed it open. Alarms began blaring as she left the golf course.

"Why is it always a dark alley?" she grumbled as she observed her surroundings.

She couldn't change yet; the robber was right on her heels. Not even somebody who thought it was a great idea to rob a mini-golf place would be stupid enough to not realize who the Green Lantern was if she put her costume on at that moment.

Instead, she cast her eyes about for something she could use as a weapon, knowing that she only had a few seconds, at most, before a man with a gun burst through the door after her.

Fortunately for her, she found the perfect thing with barely any searching at all.

"Damn it, bitch," the robber said as he burst through the door. "I don't want to hurt anybody, but—oofph!"

He was rather harshly interrupted by a broken golf club striking his midsection, causing him to double over. Misato took the opportunity to bring her knee up and slam it into the guy's face. There was a meaty crack as his nose broke from the impact.

Not giving him so much as a moment to recover, she knocked the gun from his now loose grip with her makeshift weapon, then dropped the trashed golf club and threaded her fingers together. With a cry, she brought her hands down on the back of neck with every ounce of strength she could muster.

The man crumbled to the ground and then didn't move. The whole fight had taken approximately twelve seconds.

_Guess I still got it,_ Misato thought as she squatted down to check the guy. His pulse was steady, but he was also out like a light. Perfect.

Misato curled the fingers of her right hand into a fist, and emerald light flared around her.When it had faded, the Green Lantern stood in her place.

* * *

Shinji was worried. The robber had chased Misato off a couple minutes ago, and the two of them had dashed right out of sight. The fire alarms and sprinklers had gone off not soon after, which had given him hope that his guardian had made an escape. However, there had been no sign of her since then, and he and the other hostages were left with the remaining robber. The guy had finally realized that it would make his life easier if he forced the teenager who'd been minding the counter to wait with all his other hostages. The criminal had then stripped them all of their valuables, but now he had nothing to do and seemed to be growing more and more antsy with every second that passed.

Shinji desperately wanted to do something, but there simply wasn't anything he _could_ do. Being powerless was hardly a new thing for him; it was practically the story of his life, but that didn't make it any more tolerable.

"Hey, jerk, why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

Shinji turned to look in the direction that the shout had come from, believing that it was Misato he'd heard. However, his eyes quickly told him that it was not Misato.

It was the Green Lantern.

The new super heroine in town actually resembled his guardian quite a bit, but even a quick look revealed a number of key differences. While she had the same voluptuous build as Misato, she was also a good bit more muscular, and her hair was ebony black instead of purple. Also he realized that her voice, now that he mentally replayed it, wasn't _quite _like his guardian's; it was a little deeper and throatier. Maybe if Misato had a head cold she would sound that way.

She floated about a foot off the ground, her body surrounded by a halo of emerald light that the Third Child found strangely familiar, as though he'd seen it before somewhere. The robber gaped at her stupidly for what was easily fifteen seconds.

Then he recovered. Without hesitating, the man brought his gun up and fired three shots. Even in the large mini-golf course, the reports sounded deafening to Shinji.

A shield made from green light formed before the Lantern, easily blocking the slugs. She smirked at the robber. "Nice try," she said. "You want to surrender now and make it easy on yourself, or are you going to be difficult about this?"

"All right, maybe I can't hurt _you_," the robber said, "but I'll bet I _can_ still hurt—"

A blast of jade energy shot through the barrel of his gun, vaporizing it, before he could point the weapon at any of his hostages. The man let out a cry of surprise and dismay, dropping the now ruined firearm.

"You bitch!" the man shrieked. "You know how hard it is to find a piece like that?!"

Obviously blinded by rage, the man went running toward the luminescent superwoman.

"How did I know you'd have to do this the hard way?" the Green Lantern asked rhetorically as a jet of emerald light burst forth from the big ring she wore.

Shinji's eyes widened as he watched that shaft of light take on the form of a giant golf club. The robber stopped dead in his tracks, and a rather wicked grin spread over the super-heroine's face.

"Like being struck by lightning…" the robber muttered to himself.

"Four!" the Green Lantern yelled.

The huge golf club swung, striking the robber dead on. The man let out a cry as he was sent flying, the wallets and jewelry he'd taken falling to the ground as they were knocked out of his pockets by the force of the blow.

_Now _that_ was a hit,_ Shinji thought as he watched the masked criminal soar about twenty meters before crashing into the obstacle of the course's final hole, which was a miniature version of the Imperial Palace. The small structure collapsed around the crook, who groaned and then went silent, obviously down for the count.

The Green Lantern turned toward the teenager who worked at the golf course. "This place has insurance, right?"

"Uh, yeah," the guy replied, staring at the Green Lantern just as fixedly as he'd been staring at Misato earlier. "I think so."

"Good," the super-heroine said, then turned her attention to the small crowd of people. "Is everybody okay? Nobody's hurt right?"

"Uh, it looks like everyone's fine," Shinji spoke up after quickly surveying the other people who'd been unfortunate enough to decide to go golfing that evening. "Um, did you happen to see a purple-haired woman earlier? She's about your height."

"Yeah, I was on…patrol and happened to catch sight of her fighting with this creep's partner," she said, gesturing toward the robber who lay in the rubble of the miniature palace. "She disarmed the guy before I could jump in, then she told me what was happening here."

"So she's okay?" Shinji asked urgently.

"She's fine," the Green Lantern confirmed.

"Thank goodness. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to her," Shinji breathed a sigh of relief, then realized that the jade champion was smiling at him. "What?"

"Nothing," she replied, waving a hand dismissively. "Well, I have to fly. Places to go, people to see, crooks to catch…"

"Oh, sure," Shinji said. "Thanks a lot for the save."

Several other golfers echoed Shinji's sentiments. The Green Lantern's smile widened. "Hey, it's my job," she said. "Catch you later."

With that, she flew off into the sky, leaving a trail of green light and several very grateful people behind her.

* * *

Mere moments later, the Green Lantern returned to earth in an isolated alleyway. The moment she returned to the ground, she willed her costume away, and it vanished in a brief puff of jade flames.

"Great job changing my voice, ring," Misato growled sarcastically. "I sounded almost exactly the same!"

_"This ring will further alter your vocal cords if you request for your voice to be changed again in the future,"_ it answered.

Misato sighed, not quite satisfied with this response. Silly though it might have been, she'd really wanted an apology from the thing.

_Well, hopefully I look too different as the Green Lantern for Shinji to even guess the truth,_ she thought. _He_ _probably won't be able to remember the details from a chaotic situation like that anyway._

With this in mind, Misato began to make her way back to the golf course.

* * *

With the way Misato had tripped the fire alarm, there wasn't even any need for anyone to call the police. The authorities arrived a few minutes after the Green Lantern had left, and while the fire engine was quickly sent back to its station, the police car that had trailed it (for crime was high in the "border region" of the city) remained for quite some time.

The unusual manner in which the criminals had been thwarted ensured that the cops were especially careful about minding their P's and Q's, so they kept everyone at the course for hours as they took statements and examined the scene of the crime. As a result, it was after midnight before Shinji and Misato were walking back into their apartment.

"Sorry, Shinji-kun," she said as she checked for Asuka's shoes, feeling pleased to find they were present on the mat by the door.

"What for?" he asked.

"I told you we wouldn't be out all night," Misato explained, glancing at the clock she kept on the wall.

"That's not your fault," Shinji said.

"I know, but we were supposed to be having fun, not dealing with an armed robbery," Misato groaned.

"I'm actually glad you decided we should go out and do something, even in spite of that," Shinji said. "I had fun, nobody was hurt, and… it was kind of cool, getting to see the Green Lantern, I mean."

Misato smirked. "Oh, does my little Shinji-kun have a crush?"

"No!" he said, coloring slightly.

"So the Green Lantern's uglier than those pictures in the tabloids have made her look then?" Misato asked.

"It's not that," Shinji said.

It _really_ wasn't that. Studying the Green Lantern's features hadn't exactly been at the top of list of priorities while she was there, but he hadn't failed to notice that the woman was gorgeous.

"Then what is it?" Misato asked.

He shrugged. "Having a crush on a superwoman just seems… silly. Like having a crush on a pop idol or something," he explained. "I mean, it seems pointless, since you're never going to be around her for more than a few minutes at a time, at most."

Misato had to fight very hard not to laugh at that. _You'd be surprised, Shinji-kun._

"That's a very mature and boring attitude to take, Shinji-kun," she said.

"Uh… thank you?" he said in a tone that made it obvious that it was more a question than anything else.

"You're priceless, Shinji-kun," she laughed.

The purple haired woman was sorely tempted to plant another kiss on the boy's forehead, but he was awake now, and she didn't want to give him the wrong idea. So instead she hugged him, for once bending down slightly so that his face wasn't buried in her bust. After a brief, awkward moment, he slowly lifted his arms and hugged her back.

They ended the gentle embrace after a few seconds.

"Go to bed, Shinji-kun," she said. "You have school tomorrow, as you so unwisely reminded me earlier."

He nodded and headed for the hallway, only to stop and then slowly turn around to face her again. "Misato," he said, "I was…very, very relieved when I found out you hadn't been hurt."

She smiled at him. "It was a lot of fun tonight, in spite of everything," she said. "We should do it again, just without the criminals next time."

"I'd like that," Shinji said. "Good night."

"'Night." She replied.

Shinji walked off, soon disappearing into his room. Misato lingered in the kitchen, grabbing herself a beer. She drained it with her characteristic speed, but refrained from her usual whoop of joy—Asuka would be on the warpath if she was so rudely woken up at this time of night, and Misato honestly wouldn't be able to blame her.

Instead, she leaned against her refrigerator and let out a soft sigh.

_I wish I wasn't too old for you, Shinji-kun,_ she thought.

* * *

"This really isn't necessary, Chiron," Kaji practically growled the next day. "I know my magnetic personality is hard to resist, but you don't need to visit my office every fifteen minutes."

"I'm just checking up to make sure that you're not accidentally venturing to the wrong place, Ryoji," the chief of Section Two replied.

Kaji forced himself not to wince. He hated his given name. "I know my way around," he replied, "and I think that you'd have more important things to do than check up on little old me, despite how competent and highly trained the members of your own department are."

The two men had been trading jabs in this manner for most of the morning. Both Commanders were out of the city, having ventured to the South Pole, and Chiron had been hovering about Kaji in their absence to make sure the long haired man didn't abuse his new privileges as the Operations Director.

_I wonder if Ikari put him up to this, or if he decided to make my life hell all by himself,_ Kaji thought.

Before Chiron could respond to Kaji's latest barb with some thinly veiled threat or insult, klaxons started to blare all through the base. The two men exchanged a look, and then Kaji quickly rose and headed out, rushing toward the command center.

"Status report," he demanded as soon as the doors opened for him.

"About two minutes ago we detected a massive object orbiting the Earth above the Indian Ocean," Makoto said. "Wave pattern analysis confirmed that it's an Angel."

"Can we get a visual on it?" Kaji asked, walking up behind the bespectacled technician.

"I'll see what I can do," Aoba said.

"Sending recon satellite six into that orbit now," Maya said. "T-minus two minutes to contact."

"The target has been sighted," Aoba said.

The main screen switched to a view of the Tenth Angel, a huge orange thing that looked like it had an eye in the center of its body. Hyuga gasped. "It's enormous."

"It's a big one all right," Kaji agreed.

"Recon six in now in range," Aoba announced. "Commencing data search… search complete. Transmitting data."

Mere seconds after he said this, the satellite scanning the Angel crumpled, and the image of it was replaced by snow.

"It looks like a nice use of the AT field," Maya said fearfully.

"All right, Situation Room, everyone," Kaji said. "And somebody contact the pilots."

* * *

"The Angel has been dropping parts of its own mass onto the Earth for the last two hours," Maya reported. "The combination of the AT Field impact and simple kinetic energy has been causing huge tidal waves when it hits the ocean."

"Unfortunately, it looks like tidal waves will be the least of our problems," Ritsuko put it. "The Angel has been steadily correcting its error ratio. It's learning to aim itself."

"We detonated an aerial N2 mine on the target," Makoto added. "No effect, I'm afraid."

"The Angel has been hiding since then," Aoba continued. "It's using its ECM jamming to keep us from accurately locating it, despite its size."

"It's coming here," Misato said.

"It's a safe bet," Ritsuko agreed. "And if it falls on us, this area will become part of the Pacific Ocean."

"Can we contact the Commander?" Kaji asked.

"No, we can't get through the Angel's jamming," Aoba said.

"What do the MAGI say?" Kaji asked.

"All three recommend evacuation," Maya answered.

"What will you do, Kaji?" Ritsuko asked. "You're the one in charge of all this now."

The man turned to regard the bottle blond scientist. "I don't suppose you had the MAGI calculate the odds of our success if the EVA Units were to engage this Angel head on?"

The question was asked in an appropriately serious tone, but Ritsuko could detect an undercurrent of Kaji's usual humor. This didn't surprise her, considering how ironic the seemingly innocent question really was. Where the Angels were concerned, she made it a habit to have the MAGI calculate the odds of _everything._

"Yes, sir," Ritsuko answered, ignoring how strange it felt to address Kaji in such a manner. "The MAGI tentatively estimate the odds of victory against this Angel as over 10,000 to one."

"That's about what I would have expected," Kaji said. "All right, I'm issuing a D-17 special evacuation order. I want everyone within fifty kilometers of here evacuated by the time that Angel's ready for its final attack."

"Yes, sir!" Aoba, Maya, and Makoto said in unison.

"Kaji, you're not evacuating _everyone_, are you?" Misato asked abruptly, just as the trio of technicians was about to move to their tasks.

"Yes, I am," he answered plainly.

"But you can't do that!" Misato protested. "The city will be completely destroyed! NERV didn't build the great fortress of humanity to let the Angels destroy it without a fight!"

"Katsuragi, saving the city isn't an option," Kaji said firmly. "Our choices are fleeing and continuing the war somewhere else or staying here and throwing away the Evangelions and the Children in a futile fight."

"You're not really trying to command battles by the numbers, are you?" Misato demanded, aghast.

"Numbers like 10,000 to one are pretty hard to argue with, but no, not entirely," Kaji answered levelly. "My instincts are telling me that staying here is suicidal as much as the math is, and to leave the city is just the logical course of action."

"I don't believe you!" Misato exclaimed. "Your first battle and you respond by waving the white flag!"

"Misato," Kaji said, and the almost placid demeanor he'd been sporting until now began to break as some of his annoyance seeped into his voice. "Isn't this the very reason you decided to leave the Operations Director job? You're thinking with your emotions here, not your head. Can't you see that?"

Misato just crossed her arms and silently glared at the man who had once been her lover. Not wanting to be in command when situations like this arose had nothing to do with the real reason for her resignation, but she couldn't very well tell Kaji that. It made for a maddening situation.

For his own part, Kaji was more than a little annoyed at his ex-girlfriend, though he didn't show his displeasure nearly as openly as she did. Misato's decision to resign from her old job had introduced no small number of complications into his life. He didn't exactly expect gratitude or apologies from her, but it would've been nice if she didn't try to bite his head off for commanding as he saw fit.

"All right, enough!" said Ritsuko, ending the tense moment. "Kaji's the one in command, so we evacuate."

The technicians and various other personnel took that as cue to get to work on executing the new Operations Director's orders, only too glad for the opportunity to be away from the tense stand-off.

Misato just turned on her heel and stalked out of the command center without another word. NERV might be running in the face of this Angel, but the Green Lantern certainly would not.

* * *

It was utter pandemonium. That was the only way to describe the scene at the great landing ground of the JSDF airbase. People of all ages, from all walks of life, were rushing about in all directions. Many of them were carrying hastily packed suitcases, but when something was dropped, it was allowed to lie where it had fallen. The sounds of crying babies, shouting people, and spinning helicopter rotors all melded together into one chaotic cacophony.

The city of Tokyo-3 was going to be destroyed, and everyone was understandably in a rather panicked mood as they rushed to get out before that happened.

Being an EVA pilot, Shinji enjoyed certain privileges that the rest of the people in the city weren't fortunate enough to have. For one thing, he and Asuka had been told what was happening earlier than the rest of Tokyo-3's citizens, giving them a somewhat better chance to pack. (Not that Shinji needed very much time, anyway. The only material items in his possession that he really cared for were his SDAT player and his cello. Asuka, however, had definitely benefited from the advance warning.) Also, the transport helicopter that the pilots were to take out of the city was reserved and guarded for them by Section Two, who for once did an exceptionally good job at the task they were given. This might have had something to do with the fact that to execute this task, all the men in the black suits needed to do was stand around the chopper and look big and surly, but Shinji supposed it was still something to put into their win column.

"Where do you suppose Misato is?" Shinji asked, clutching Pen-Pen to his chest.

"I don't know, Third Child, but I wouldn't worry much. Misato's a grown-up. She can take care of herself," Asuka replied with an uncharacteristic lack of heat.

The redhead had been behaving oddly ever since they'd gotten the news about the evacuation, but Shinji didn't have much trouble figuring out why. Asuka wasn't one to run when faced with the enemy, so he was sure there was no way she approved of this course of action, unlike himself, who was guiltily relieved that they wouldn't have to fight this Angel. However, the orders came from Kaji, whom Asuka had been thrilled to learn would be replacing Misato as the Ops Director. The German was feeling rather torn, to put it mildly.

Shinji hugged Pen-Pen tighter to himself, feeling anxiety twist around in his gut. Misato _was_ an adult, of course, despite how often she acted otherwise, but he had seen the look in her eyes when she told him and Asuka about what Kaji had decided to do.

He had never seen her so furious before, and he was worried about what she might do in such a state.

"Ikari," Rei said.

"What is it?" he asked, snapping out of his thoughts.

"I believe you are squeezing the penguin too hard," the blue haired girl said, pointing at Pen-Pen, who Shinji realized was releasing a series of rather strangled sounding noises.

"Oops," he said. "Uh, here, why don't you hold him for a while, Ayanami?"

Shinji handed Pen-Pen to Rei, who held him under his wings and stared at him for a few seconds. Then the penguin released a loud "Wark!"

Rei actually smiled at this, albeit very slightly, and then sat the water fowl down on her lap.

Shinji returned to brooding about his worries, or he would have, had he not happened to spot a very familiar red jacket in the undulating crowd of people outside the helicopter.

"Misato!" he shouted, leaping out of the chopper and making his way through the disorderly press of humanity as quickly as he could, an annoyed Section Two agent trailing him.

She didn't hear him over all the other noise, but he eventually managed to get close enough to her to place his hand on her shoulder, causing her to turn.

"Shinji-kun," she said in surprise, "shouldn't you be in the sky by now?"

"We're supposed to take off in a few minutes," he said. "Why don't you come with us? There's plenty of room on the helicopter for you."

"Sorry, Shinji-kun, but I can't go yet," Misato said. "I have to help supervise the evacuation. They really need everybody they can to try and keep things from totally falling apart here."

Shinji couldn't really dispute that; a look around them was all it would take to confirm Misato's statement. However, the logic she displayed did nothing to quell his fears.

"All right," he said, "but please… be safe, and make sure you leave yourself enough time to get away."

She smiled at him, then, seeming to read his mind, said, "Relax, Shinji-kun. I may be crazy sometimes, but I'm not stupid. I'm pissed about what Kaji decided to do, but I'm not going to stay here and let myself get killed to make a point."

"Promise?" Shinji asked, feeling incredibly childish making such a request, but needing that extra bit of reassurance.

"Cross my heart," Misato replied with a small smile. "Now, go get on that helicopter and get out of here, Shinji-kun."

He nodded. "I'll see you later, Misato."

* * *

Hours later, one last transport helicopter took to the skies that had been packed with aircraft earlier, evacuating the last of the NERV personnel who had lingered to ensure everyone else would get out safely. This final group was cutting it exceedingly close, and the pilot intended to push his machine to its limits to make sure they made it away in time.

Needless to say, Misato wasn't on this one, or any of the other helicopters that had left the city. She had made sure that the records would say she had taken one of them out, but in reality she remained in Tokyo-3, a city that was now abandoned save for her.

It was perhaps the most desolate scene she'd ever seen, save perhaps for a few she'd taken in whilst at the South Pole. Truly, it was the calm before the storm.

Misato had never liked the calm before the storm; she hated waiting.

"Ring," she said, "is anyone else here besides me?"

_"Negative,"_ it answered at once.

"Good," she said. "Where's the Angel?"

_"The Angel is approximately 10,000 kilometers above your present position,"_ the ring answered. _"At its current velocity, it should enter your visual range in under two minutes."_

"Then, I think you know what to do," she said, grinning maliciously.

_"Affirmative,"_ the ring said as it transformed her clothing and body into that of the Green Lantern.

The glowing heroine took off, surging upwards through the air toward her enemy at top speed. Wind gusted past her, and the air soon grew thin and cold as she rapidly gained altitude, but she noticed none of it. The jade force field that enclosed her body could protect her and keep her alive in the harsh environment of outer space; the conditions in the upper atmosphere were nothing to her.

It wasn't long before she saw the Angel approaching, its massive form wreathed in plasma from the heat of its entry into the Earth's atmosphere. There was enough distance between them for the thing to still look small, but the Green Lantern wasn't fooled for an instant. The Angel was utterly _enormous_, totally dwarfing the EVA Units in comparison.

For a moment, the Green Lantern felt indecision stir in her breast. Though she had managed to destroy the previous Angel by herself, it had been a close thing, and the sight of the Tenth made it abundantly clear that the two monsters simply were not in the same league. Even worse, the very simple, very direct approach being utilized by this Angel demanded an equally straightforward counter. There would be no victory through clever tactics this time; she had to overpower the damn thing, and she wasn't sure she could do it. She considered retreating.

Then the moment passed, and she urged herself to greater speed. The ring was one of the most powerful weapons in the universe. If the Evangelions could kill this Angel (and she had faith that they would have succeeded if Kaji had allowed them to enter the battlefield), then so could she.

Eventually judging that she was close enough to engage the Angel, the Green Lantern raised her fist and focused her willpower, and a beam of light shot forth from her power ring, quickly taking on the form of a green hand that was the size of the Angel's central section.

"I'm going to kill you, you monster!" she roared. "You're not going to hurt anyone like Adam did!"

The great hand she'd created reached the Angel, causing the beast's AT Field to flash to life. The Green Lantern didn't care about the barrier just at the moment; she wasn't planning on killing the Angel yet. She wanted to get it out of the Earth's gravity, first, where its massive size gave it a greater advantage.

So she pushed, straining against the incredible weight and momentum of the Angel, but it wasn't enough. The thing continued to plummet toward the ground, pushing the Green Lantern and her huge construct downward as it did so.

"No…" she said through clenched teeth, her face scrunching up with effort as she strained, not with her muscles, but with her mind and her very soul.

_It's not enough,_ she thought, _I need more power._

She channeled a burst of extra will through the ring, hoping that if she could just slow it down and diminish its momentum, then she could succeed in forcing back into space.

Her construct glowed more brightly, seeming to solidify. For a moment, she thought she could see its pace slowing, that the two structures on the side of the main body were beginning to fall forward as inertia began to carry them past the center, which she was interdicting.

Then the emerald hand shattered as though it were made of glass, the shards flying everywhere but quickly changing into swamp green smoke that almost immediately dissipating in the air. The Green Lantern released a cry of surprise and dismay.

"No!" she shouted, wasting no time in creating another hand and beginning another attempt.

_"Warning, Lantern. Ten minutes to impact,"_ the ring said.

"Don't care," she gritted out, sweat beading on her brow as she gave the task of stopping the Angel everything she had.

_Damn you, monster, I _am_ going to kill you with this ring,_ she thought hatefully, trying to gradually funnel more and more of her willpower into her construct, hoping that the rapid power surge was what had caused her previous one to break under the pressure.

_"Eight minutes to impact,"_ the ring spoke up.

"Still don't care," she said.

More slowly this time, the hand grew brighter, sharper, and more clearly defined. And, almost though it was almost impossible to perceive with the naked eye, the Angel again began to slow.

_"Rate of descent decreasing,"_ the ring reported. _"Time to impact is now eight minutes and thirty seconds."_

"Well, I guess it's a—"

The Green Lantern was cut off as her construct shattered once more, and the Angel sped up, once again unimpeded in its quest to flatten the city of Tokyo-3.

"Damn it!" she screamed.

_"Recalculating. Time until impact is now six minutes. Recommend immediate withdrawal,"_ the ring said.

"No, damn you!" Green Lantern snapped, furious.

She tried again, pouring every ounce of willpower she possessed into the construct from the start this time. The construct broke almost immediately.

"Why isn't this working?!" she shouted, livid with frustration.

_"Your willpower is currently laced with rage,"_ the ring answered, quite unexpectedly. _"This compromises the integrity of your constructs."_

"What?!" Green Lantern exclaimed. "You mean that in order to kill this thing, I can't hate it while I do it?!"

_"Affirmative,"_ the ring answered. _"Two minutes until impact."_

She turned her head to look down at the city and saw that she was getting uncomfortably close to it. She didn't quite have that "way high up" perspective where the buildings looked like toys and the trees looked like broccoli any longer. She had time for one more shot at this.

_But I have to do the impossible to succeed,_ she thought, distraught.

Her drive to destroy the Angels, the willpower that she had used to propel herself into the Operations Director post, had come from a rather complicated brew of emotions, but lust for vengeance had always been chief among them. She didn't know what she could draw strength in combat from, if not her old hatred of her enemies.

_This Angel is trying to smash your home, and humanity's best chance at surviving this war with it,_ she thought, frantically trying to marshal the necessary will.

However, she knew without even making another attempt at stopping the Angel that this approach wouldn't work. She couldn't get truly worked up about defending her currently empty apartment, and the human mind simply wasn't wired to become very emotional about a faceless mass of people.

Or, as a certain Communist leader had so bluntly put it several decades ago, one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.

She needed something else to inspire the unwavering, primal _need_ to win, the limitless determination to succeed, no matter what.

_You promised Shinji you wouldn't die here,_ a little voice whispered from within her mind.

Her eyes widened as she remembered that. Since she had never intended to die anyway, she hadn't given much thought to the vow she'd made, and in the heat of battle she'd forgotten it almost entirely.

Now, however, she remembered not only the promise she'd made him, but the laundry list of tragedies he'd suffered through already in his young life. His dossier contained little else, and she'd witnessed firsthand what had happened when he and his father had met for the first time in years.

She couldn't break her promise to him by dying and add one more disaster to his life. She could _not_.

"For Shinji, then," she said to herself, doing her best to not think about everything the Angels had taken from her.

One more hand burst forth from her ring, and immediately the Green Lantern knew that this one was different. The light it was formed from was nearly blinding, and it looked almost solid. All her previous constructs were pale shadows in comparison to this one. The great green hand reached out and began to press against the mammoth Angel's AT Field, and soon, the Angel began to slow. She was finally doing it.

Now the question was, had she figured out how to win in time?

_"Impact in one minute,"_ the ring announced.

"Come on," Green Lantern groaned. "Come _on._"

The Angel was really slowing down now, but there was so little distance between it and the ground that the Green Lantern wasn't sure whether or not she could hope to win the day. Thanks to the thing's AT Field and massive size, it would still destroy a hell of a lot of property if it managed to hit the ground, no matter how slowly it was going at the time.

The Green Lantern felt her boots touch the ground and came to the horrible realization that she had effectively lost. In mere seconds, the Angel above her would reach its goal, and she would be dead.

"No," she breathed. "I promised, damn it."

She continued to pour her willpower into the ring, intent on fighting the Angel until there was no longer breath in her body, intent on never surrendering to it, but hope had been lost when her toes touched solid ground. Even as she continued to struggle against it, she instinctively squeezed her eyes shut.

Then, all of a sudden…nothing happened.

The Green Lantern's eyes popped as she realized that her "final moment" had dragged on for too long, and she looked up to see that the Angel had come to a full and complete stop above her. She broke out into a broad grin, triumph washing away the grim emotions of mere moments ago.

"Going up," she said.

Her feet rose off the ground once more, and the Angel was pushed up further into the air by the power of her ring and will. Its AT Field flashed angrily as she sent it back towards orbit, but there was little the thing could do.

Little, but not nothing.

Great blobs of the Angel's orange mass quickly pooled on the surface of its body before they went sloughing off, sending a sphere of matter that was capable of creating a tidal wave falling toward the beast's emerald enemy.

Not long ago, the task of keeping the Angel from resuming its descent while simultaneously stopping the relatively small missile it had dropped would have been impossible for her. However, the Green Lantern of Sector 2814 was a much better ring-slinger than she had been that morning, and at the moment, she felt like she was all but invincible as power surged through her and into her ring.

"I don't think so," she said, capturing the projectiles in a sphere of green light, while carefully maintaining focus on the construct of a hand. "Incinerate."

There a great burst of light, and the spheres of Angelic matter were reduced to ash.

It continued to throw these things at her as she forced it to ascend, and Green Lantern had to do some rather difficult mental juggling to ward them all off without losing her hold on the Angel, but the momentum of the battle had shifted her way, and she'd be damned if she was going to lose it.

_"Exiting upper atmosphere,"_ the ring announced.

Seconds later, she found herself among the blackness of outer space, a billion stars creating points of frozen light without number in the distance. Against this backdrop, the Tenth Angel looked almost tranquil.

She dispelled the hand. It was no longer necessary now that they were far enough from the Earth to be weightless. The Angel immediately began to drift closer to the planet, but it was far too slow to escape her now.

A jet of light burst forth from her ring and formed a new construct, this one far more elaborate than the great hand from before but no less potent. It was the exact size and shape of the experimental positron rifle that had ended the Fifth Angel.

The Fifth had been the most powerful Angel NERV had encountered up to that time, with an AT Field of frightening strength. Yet the enormous gun had managed to pierce both its AT Field and its armored body from a distance of several kilometers away.

And now an emerald replica of that firearm was aimed at the Tenth Angel from point-blank range.

"See ya," Green Lantern said cheerfully as she commanded her ring to pull the trigger.

A blast of blazing green energy erupted from the barrel of the gun, crashing right into the Angel's AT field. The barrier of orange light held… for approximately 0.03 seconds. Then the lance of emerald energy slammed into the Angel's core, shattering it, and then blasted out the other side of the beast.

"Ring?" Green Lantern asked.

_"The Angel has been destroyed,"_ it replied.

"Beautiful," she said, "now to take out the trash."

The giant green hand made one last appearance for the day, grabbing hold of the enormous carcass and flinging in the direction of the sun. It would likely take centuries, if not longer, but the thing's body would one day be incinerated as it approached the largest fusion reaction in the solar system. The idea pleased the Green Lantern.

"Guess my job's done. I should probably head home," she said. "But first, I think I should put in an appearance planet-side. Ring, can anyone on Earth see me up here?"

_"Negative."_

"Good."

A small shaft of light came from her ring, quickly forming a green duplicate of Misato Katsuragi. Not yet satisfied with her creation, the Green Lantern then concentrated harder, her teeth clenching as she struggled to modify the construct to suit her needs.

Finally, the thing's colors changed, the green disappearing and being replaced by several other hues, until the construct was a perfect ringer for the former Ops Director, save for the completely empty look in its brown eyes.

"Wow," Green Lantern said. "This is freaky."

She shook her head, putting these thoughts aside. She didn't want to waste any time; she couldn't be in two places at once, but if she was quick enough, and clever enough, she could do the next best thing and fool everyone.

Assuming, of course, that she could make her plan work. The Green Lantern concentrated hard, and then closed her eyes.

And when she opened them, she found herself staring at the Green Lantern.

"Now _this_ is freaky," Misato proclaimed, waving a hand in front of her own face and getting no response.

Still, it had worked; she had managed to transfer her consciousness from her own body to the construct. Now she just had to get back to—

—Misato suddenly found herself standing in the corridors of NERV's auxiliary base in Matsushiro. Suddenly feeling rather dizzy, she put a hand to her head and leaned against the wall for a second.

_Right, I'm not in a real body right now,_ she thought. _This thing's just a construct made of light, with force fields giving it some substance. And that means I can move at the speed of light._

"That would be so cool if it wasn't so… jarring," she decided aloud, then went looking for the base's command center.

* * *

The atmosphere in the Matsushiro base's command center had been rather grim at first, to put it mildly. The senior staff (sans Misato) and the EVA pilots had gathered to watch the Angel's final assault on the city, even though no one had actually wanted to do so. Asuka in particular had tried to escape, but Kaji had asked her to stay, saying he wanted her to see the power of their enemies so she'd understand what she was up against. The redhead had reluctantly agreed to remain.

So they had all watched as the shadow of the Tenth Angel had fallen upon Tokyo-3, fully expecting the great being falling from the heavens to smash the city beneath it like it was made of sand.

And then… a green light had appeared.

The assembled group had watched with baited breath as the Green Lantern had dueled with the Angel, becoming certain that she was doomed to failure as her repeated attempts to push it back into space met with no success.

Just when all hope was lost, she had succeeded and then disappeared into the blackness of space with the beast.

"The blue pattern has vanished," one of the Matsushiro techs reports a few minutes after they'd lost track of the Angel and the Lantern. "The Tenth Angel is dead!"

Cheers erupted from the assembled personnel, especially those who'd come from the Tokyo-3 base. The new superwoman had spared them a grievous defeat.

The relieved whoops and cheers were just starting to die down when the former Ops Director happened to walk into the command center.

"Misato!" Shinji exclaimed. "Where have you been all this time?"

He had been worried when she'd failed to materialize anywhere at Matsushiro, fearing that she might have stayed behind despite what she'd told him.

"I kind of got turned around in here," she admitted, a rather sheepish grin on her face. She sobered quickly however. "And I guess I didn't try very hard to find the command center here. Didn't want to see the Angel take the victory we gave it on a silver platter, though it looks like I didn't have to worry about that, no thanks to NERV."

"We can't depend on the superwomen to back us up against the Angels, Katsuragi," Kaji said levelly. "I did what I thought was best."

"Hmm, I'm sure you did," Misato said, her tone making it clear she approved of his decision no more than she had before. "Shinji, Asuka, get your stuff. I need to go powder my nose, and then we're going to try to beat the rush back to Tokyo-3. Rei, you can tag along if you'd like."

The trio of pilots all nodded in acknowledgement, and Misato departed from the command center.

"Hey!" one of the techs said moments later. "It looks like the Green Lantern's coming back down!"

Without waiting for any order to do so, the technician zoomed in on the super-heroine and put the image up on the main screen. She was just a dot of light at first, but she quickly got close enough for all of them to get a good look at her as she soared above the skies over Tokyo-3, green fireworks spewing out of her ring as they went. The jade pyrotechnics all flew away from her for a few seconds before they exploded in a spectacular light show.

Back on the command center, Makoto leaned over toward Aoba. "Is it just me, or is this new one ridiculously awesome?" he asked.

"Is it just me, or is this new one ridiculously hot?" Aoba replied.

Makoto looked up at the main viewer again. "Nope, it's not just you."

* * *

Meanwhile, half a world away, Gendo Ikari was having a good day. They had successfully located and retrieved the Lance of Longinus, which meant that SEELE's power over him continued to dwindle. With Adam, Lilith, Unit One, and now the Lance under his control, there was little the old men could do to stand in the way of his scenario's fulfillment.

"Sir," a sailor said as he entered the enclosed observation deck where he and Fuyutski stood, "there's a telex for you from Japan."

The man held out an envelope. Gendo accepted it and then dismissed the man. His day took a distinct nose dive as he read the message.

"What is it?" Fuyutski asked.

"The Green Lantern is real," Gendo replied, "and she's just officially become a thorn in NERV's side."

* * *

Author's Notes: What to say here? Well, first, I'm sorry for dragging my feet a bit on this update. Hopefully the size of this chapter helps to make up for it.

I'm not sure if I pumped as much suspense into the battle against the Tenth Angel as possible, but overall I'm pleased with this chapter. Fans of the Green Lantern books may notice the similarity of Misato's interpretation of Second Impact to Hal's interpretation of a certain plane crash. Also got to showcase another trait Misato shares with Hal, namely her refusal to ever give up, even when that would probably be the smart move. (Incidentally, Asuka also shares this trait. If I didn't have her otherwise occupied, I think she'd make a pretty decent Guy Gardner to Misato's Hal Jordan, but that's neither here nor there.)

Animefan29, I'm pretty sure GL's have been able to phase through stuff for a while, though the only specific example that comes to mind is from the episode "In Brightest Day" of the Superman animated series. In it, Sinestro flings Kyle into a building, and he phases through (without even trying or knowing he can) rather than crashes through.

Orion, told you Misato was doing it wrong last chapter. :P Really, Lanterns are capable of incredible destructive power, so brute forcing her way past AT Fields is not off the table for Misato.

Gunman, you called it. I half expected everyone to think some figure from the comics would make an appearance, but clearly my plan was less mysterious than I'd thought.

NefCanuck, oh, I have plans, of that I can assure you.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader. Now for some fun.

* * *

Omake

The Greatest Green Lantern of Them ALL

It was a perfectly normal day at the Katsuragi apartment. Shinji was preparing to cook dinner, Misato was on the couch drinking beer, and for the purpose of this omake, Asuka was…somewhere else.

Then, a cry of pain sounded through the living space.

"Ow!" Shinji cried.

"What's wrong, Shinji-kun?" Misato asked, looking over at him.

"Pen-Pen jabbed me in the ankle with his beak," the Third Child replied, rubbing the place. "He just waddled up and tried to stab me. I think he almost drew blood."

"Oh, he's probably just mad at you because you haven't cooked him fish in so long," Misato said.

"Then I guess I'd better go get some," Shinji said with a sigh. "I'll be back in a few minutes, Misato."

"Okay," she said.

Grabbing his wallet, the Third Child left the apartment.

Misato was about to go back to laying on her couch and drinking beer when a flare of emerald light that had _not_ come from her suddenly filled the apartment. Jumping up in alarm and ready to assume her alter ego at a moments notice, she turned to look in the direction the light had come from…and her jaw dropped.

Pen-Pen was floating several feet in the air, his little bird body clad in the unformed of a Green Lantern. There was even a small mask over his eyes. A tiny green ring rested upon one of his claws.

"Wark! Wark wark!" he squawked at her.

_"Universal translator activated,"_ her ring said.

"So," Pen-Pen said, "it looks like _you_ got yourself a Green Lantern power ring, Misato."

She blinked. "Pen-Pen, you can talk?"

"Of course I can talk!" he exclaimed. "Ring! Tell the rookie who I am!"

_"Pen-Pen is the former Green Lantern of Sector 2814, having preceded Abin Sur,"_ his ring answered. _"Sector 2814 was the most orderly sector in the universe during his tenure, and Pen-Pen was known as the greatest Green Lantern of them all. Having been allowed to retain his ring even after retirement by special permission from the Guardians of the Universe, Pen-Pen currently holds the title of Honor Lantern."_

"That's right!" Pen-Pen said. "I've been watching you, rookie, and I have to say that your performance so far has been absolutely pathetic! Since you're too stubborn to go to Oa for training, I guess it's my duty to the corps to whip you into shape myself!"

"Um, okay, I could definitely use a teacher," Misato said. "How do we start?"

* * *

_Some time later, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean…_

"Pen-Pen, I really don't see how this is supposed to make me a better Green Lantern," she said, gazing at the ring construct of a large green net she currently had going, which was full of various types of sea life.

She had been fairly enthusiastic at first, but when Pen-Pen had ordered her to catch fish, well, she had grown suspicious of his motives.

"Do not question me, rookie!" the bird roared. "Now get back to work!"

She sighed. "Fine."

He watched her fly off, shaking his head. "Poozer."


	5. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Four:** Yellow

Gendo Ikari never had enjoyed meeting with the SEELE council. The old men hid behind their holographic monoliths and their distorted voices, putting him at an inherent disadvantage. He was, of course, more than equal to them despite this, but that didn't mean he had to like dealing with the handicap, or them for that matter.

Today the ordeal was especially unpleasant.

"The events that occurred during the most recent battle were unacceptable, Ikari," SEELE-04 began without preamble.

"Shall I go back and change them, then?" Gendo asked in a perfectly controlled voice.

"Don't get smart with us, Ikari," SEELE-11 growled. "You allowed NERV to be outperformed and completely humiliated by a completely unknown entity. You must answer for this."

"The Green Lantern is not a completely unknown entity any longer," Gendo said.

As he'd hoped, this stirred the council's interest and diverted their attention away from the topic at hand.

"What do you mean?" SEELE-01 asked. "What have you discovered?"

"I had the MAGI search for any information on this Green Lantern, on the off-chance something would come up. Something did," Gendo said. "There have been previous incidents where beings who wore the same emblem that the Green Lantern has were seen, wielding strange powers that involved green light."

"Go on," SEELE-01 said.

"There are two old legends, one from the American Old West and the other from ancient China," Gendo said. "In the legend from the States, a man who was or managed to pass for a Native American fought and eventually defeated a strange criminal known only as 'Traitor.' In the Chinese legend, a dragon-like creature carved himself a small kingdom out of the countryside."

"All well and good, but have you actually learned anything _useful_?" SEELE-07 grumbled.

"If there's any truth to the legends, then the Green Lantern is not invincible," Gendo said. "The one in China was killed, and the one in America was badly wounded."

"How?" SEELE-07 asked. "How can she be hurt?"

This, unfortunately, was where Gendo began to run out of steam. "The means by which the Chinese Green Lantern met its end are… unclear. The legend of the one in America is more coherent, though multiple versions still exist. Apparently, that Green Lantern was wounded with the use of special bullets."

"'Special bullets'?" SEELE-02 asked.

"Most versions of the story state that the bullets were made of silver," Gendo said.

SEELE-10 snorted derisively. "Silver bullets? Is the Green Lantern a werewolf?" he scoffed. "Stick to realities, Ikari, not silly tales."

"Realities like the way the Green Lantern single-handedly defeated an Angel that NERV refused to even engage," SEELE-09 said, bringing the conversation back to where it had been, much to Gendo's displeasure. "The whole thing has been a public relations nightmare for NERV."

"In order to function effectively, NERV requires more money than most _countries_ expend in a decade," SEELE-11 said. "Do you think it's easy to keep that kind of money flowing into your coffers, even for us?"

"It's not," SEELE-03 spoke up, apparently unwilling to let his colleague's rhetorical question hang for even a moment. "And you making NERV look utterly impotent doesn't make it any easier."

"I would remind the council that NERV did not evacuate Tokyo-3 on my orders," Gendo said. "I was in the Antarctic at the time, acquiring the Lance. The decision to abandon the city was made by the Operations Director."

It was as subtle reminder to the council that Gendo now controlled yet another of the crucial elements for invoking a controlled Third Impact, and a not-so-subtle attempt to shift the responsibility to Kaji.

Unfortunately, the members of SEELE were having none of it. "You were the one who appointed the new Operations Director," SEELE-04 snapped. "And regardless, as the Commander of NERV, it is you who are ultimately responsible."

"In any event, we are left with little choice but to slash NERV's auxiliary budget by ten percent," SEELE-01 spoke up.

"That could delay the Instrumentality Project," Gendo said, playing his last card and hoping it proved effective.

It didn't.

"In that case, Ikari, I suggest you make sure the next victory against the Angels belongs to NERV," SEELE-01 said. "This meeting is adjourned."

With that, all the SEELE monoliths disappeared, leaving Gendo seated in a dark room all by himself. The Commander of NERV sat at his desk motionlessly for several seconds, as though waiting for them to return. A few moments passed in complete silence and stillness.

And then he abruptly slammed his fist against the top of his desk, indulging in a display of emotion he _never_ would have allowed himself if someone was watching.

Immediately regaining his composure, Gendo stood up and departed the room where he had his virtual meetings with SEELE. Both Fuyutski and Ritsuko were waiting outside the door for him. No matter; the chamber was soundproofed, so there was no way either of them could have heard him striking his desk in his brief, explosive outburst.

"Well?" Fuyutski prompted.

"The old men have cut our auxiliary budget," Gendo said curtly as he began to head down the hall.

"By how much?" Fuyutski asked as he and Ritsuko felt in step with the Commander.

"Ten percent," Gendo replied.

Fuyutski let out a low whistle. "That will curtail our research."

Ritsuko nodded in agreement. "We'll have to delay the planned experiment to gather data for the autopilot system with the dummy bodies," she said grimly. "I suppose I'll have time to oversee patching up the shoddy work done on the Sigma Unit now, though."

_Of course, a patch job is all it'll be,_ Ritsuko silently added. _Oh well, it's not like it needs to last all that long anyway._

"I still want the Dummy System to be ready as soon as possible," Gendo said. "Don't allow the budget cuts to hamper you more than is inevitable, Doctor."

"Of course not, sir," Ritsuko said, silently working on the best way to evade the Commander's wrath.

"Fuyutski, I need you to go to the city council meeting later today in my place," Gendo said.

The older man sighed. _And here I thought I might get out of the boring job for once._

"And what will you be doing?" Fuyutski asked.

"I'll be having a…talk with Captain Kaji," Gendo replied.

* * *

"Are you all right, Kaji?" Misato asked him some time later. "You don't look too hot."

The new Operations Director, his tactical consultant, and the Project-E Chairperson were all gathered in the control room to one of the EVA test chambers, along with several technicians. The moment they'd entered, Misato had noticed that Kaji was looking a bit pale and drawn, and she'd eventually become curious enough to ask him why.

"Oh, I'm fine, Misato," Kaji said, though he didn't sound it. "I must have just eaten some bad fish or something."

"Or maybe you're still suffering from the chewing out the Commander gave you," Ritsuko said with a smirk.

Misato's eyebrows went up and she smirked. "You got chewed out by the Commander?" she asked, and then in as innocent a tone as she could muster, she added, "Whatever for?"

Kaji gave her a look warning her to drop it, and Misato did, since Kaji was now firmly above her in the chain of command. A big part of military planning _was_ choosing one's battles, after all.

"Are we ready to begin the second cross-compatibility test yet?" Ritsuko asked her underlings.

"Not quite yet, ma'am," Maya said. "We still haven't finished establishing the baseline."

"Well, let me know when you're done," Ritsuko said.

"I still don't think this whole batch of tests is a good idea," Misato said. "When did you come up with the idea for them, anyway? This morning? I haven't heard anything about these experiments."

"These experiments were planned a long time ago," Ritsuko said. "We're just doing them a bit earlier than we expected to."

"Why?" Misato asked.

"Because SEELE cut our budget, and Ikari told me not to let it slow down our research too much," Ritsuko said. "So I need to do something or he'll chew my ass off."

"And that's a good reason to do this experiment early," Misato said sarcastically. "Are you sure you haven't skipped some of the necessary prep-work or something in your rush to show the brass you're not just sitting on your ass doing nothing?"

Ritsuko rolled her eyes. Misato could be _such_ a mother hen at times. She never would have guessed that taking in Shinji and then Asuka would have such an effect on the woman.

"Yes, Misato, we're sure everything's ready," Ritsuko said, exasperated. "I'd explain why we're not gambling with the Children's lives, but it would take too long."

Misato rolled her eyes. Ritsuko, like most people who were far more intelligent than the average person, could be arrogant at times. And that arrogance made her behave condescendingly without even realizing it on occasion.

"Besides," Ritsuko added, "the test with Rei in Unit One had no problems. There's no reason to believe that Shinji in Unit Zero will go poorly."

Misato just gave a soft, noncommittal grunt in response and crossed her arms over her chest.

"We're ready to begin the test, ma'am," Maya announced.

"Good," Ritsuko said. "Initiate the first and second-stage nerve connections."

The technicians got to work, and though an Evangelion wasn't fully activated until the third-stage connections between the machine and the pilot were achieved, data began to stream across numerous screens in the control room.

"How's he doing?" Ritsuko asked.

"The sync ratio's a little lower than when he's in Unit One," Maya reported. "Also, his heart rate and blood pressure and slightly elevated."

"He's jumpy," Hyuga put in.

"I guess all that's to be expected," Ritsuko said with a small nod, and then she pressed a button on one of the control panels, opening up a communications link to Shinji. "How does it feel to be piloting Unit Zero, Shinji?"

"It feels… kinda weird," the Third Child replied in an uncertain tone.

"Like incompatibility?" Ritsuko asked.

"No," Shinji said. "It's just that Unit Zero's entry plug…"

Shinji trailed off, apparently unable to put words to what he was experiencing.

"Yes?" Ritsuko prompted.

"It smells like Ayanami," Shinji said.

"It _what?!_" Asuka exclaimed, opening up her own link to the control room and Unit Zero from her Unit Two, which she was currently doing a standard sync test with.

"It's sort of a trick of the entry plug," Ritsuko said. "It seems as though the regular pilots leave sort of 'mental residue', if you will, in their EVA's. The brain senses this but doesn't know quite how to process the sensation, so it just interprets it as a smell."

Asuka arched an eyebrow, and Misato could easily tell that the Second Child didn't quite buy Ritsuko's explanation. However, the redhead closed her communications channel without the "hentai" comment that Misato had been sure was forthcoming.

Though not displeased by this, Misato was rather confused by it. Girls far less prone to call guys 'perverts' than Asuka would have been set off by Shinji's choice of words.

_Come to think of it, Asuka has been less difficult than normal lately,_ Misato mused, then shrugged, deciding there was no need to question small favors.

"Any problems detected so far?" Ritsuko asked.

"No, ma'am," Maya replied. "All lights are green."

"Good," Ritsuko said. "Proceed to the third stage connections."

"Affirmative," Maya replied, typing fluidly at her console. "Third-level nerve connections have been achieved. The Synchronograph reads normal. All readings are nominal."

"How are you holding up, Shinji-kun?" Misato asked.

He shrugged. "Okay, I…" Shinji suddenly stopped speaking, his eyes widening.

"Shinji-kun?" Misato asked, instantly worried.

"Something's… something's trying to get into my brain," Shinji grunted, clutching onto his head. "I can't—"

What exactly Shinji couldn't do at that moment would forever be a mystery, because the communications channel was abruptly shut down as Unit Zero released a deep, bestial roar and began to struggle against its restraints.

"What the hell is happening?" Misato demanded.

"Unit Zero is going berserk!" Maya exclaimed.

"Send the shut-down codes!" Ritsuko barked. "Deactivate the EVA down now!"

"I'm trying! The codes are being refused!" Maya replied.

"Eject the umbilical cable!" Kaji ordered.

"Roger!" Maya replied. "Unit Zero now on internal power. Deactivation in two minutes!"

"No!" Ritsuko said as she watched the blue EVA continue to go berserk. "It's the same error! The exact same one!"

As if to punctuate this alarming statement, Unit Zero managed to tear the restraint that kept its right shoulder bolted to the wall of the chamber free, shattering concrete and tearing armor-grade steel like it was nothing. It wouldn't be long before it had freed itself entirely from the feeble bonds the tiny humans had placed upon it.

_No,_ Misato thought, remembering all too well the state that Rei had been left in after Unit Zero went berserk with her in it. The First Child had been brought right to death's doorstep, then forced to endure a long and painful recovery while wrapped in so many bandages that she resembled a mummy.

Unit Zero tore free of its remaining restraints, sending broken pieces of concrete the size of moving vans tumbling down to the floor of the test chamber. Uttering another fierce roar, Unit Zero staggered forward, its single red eye glowing with a murderous light.

Misato hadn't started working for NERV until after Rei's disastrous activation experiment had already happened, but from what she'd heard of it, this was an _exact_ recreation of that terrible event.

Her hands balled into fists, and on her right hand, she could feel the currently-invisible power ring that rested on her middle finger. It wouldn't be too big of a challenge to extract Shinji from Unit Zero with the ring's power, but if she used the ring then…

_Everyone will know,_ Misato thought, feeling an awful sense of indecision well up inside of her.

Word had already spread that the Committee had slashed NERV's budget because the organization had been humiliated by the Green Lantern, and that the Commander was less-than-pleased with the emerald warrior. If it became known to NERV that she was the Green Lantern, she could kiss her life as she knew it good-bye.

Yet her imagination conjured up an image of Shinji as battered and badly injured as Rei had been, and her soul recoiled in horror at the idea. He had suffered more than enough already. All the Children had.

_What do I do?_ Misato wondered, never having felt so torn in her entire life. _What do I do?_

Suddenly, Unit Zero's enormous fist slammed into the thick pane of bullet-proof glass that separated the control room from the test chamber. The barrier was strong enough to survive the first blow—barely. A network of deep cracks formed all across the window, and a few shards of broken glass went flying into the control room. Misato nearly transformed into the Green Lantern on sheer instinct at that very moment.

"How much time left until it shuts down!?" Ritsuko barked, even as most of the technicians sought refuge from the flying shards of glass by diving beneath their control panels.

"Thirty seconds!" responded Maya, one of the few techs who continued to man her station.

_The window probably won't last that long,_ Misato thought, fingering her power ring with her right thumb. _If it goes, I'll become the Green Lantern, and damn my secret._

Unit Zero raised its fist for another strike, continuing to release its angry, wordless roars all the while. Before it could actually fire off another massive punch, however, the blue destroyer staggered back a step, clutching at its head as though in great pain.

"Did the EVA do this when it went berserk on Rei?" Misato asked softly as she watched the prototype Evangelion begin to slam its head against one of the walls of the test chamber, putting deep dents into it.

"No," Ritsuko answered, shaking her head.

"Unit Zero's internal battery is nearly exhausted," Maya reported. "Shut down in five… four… three… two… one."

Unit Zero's pained, angry howls abruptly ceased, and the blue behemoth's motions quickly slowed, then stopped as it deactivated.

There was a moment of tense silence in the control room, as though everyone was expecting Unit Zero to reactivate and begin its rampage at any moment.

"What are you all waiting for?!" Misato barked at the still-cowering technicians. "Somebody send a team to get the Third Child out of there! Now!"

Everyone immediately got back to work and began making frenzied calls to the emergency teams that NERV employed. Misato watched through the badly cracked window as Shinji was extracted from the now-silent Evangelion and then carted off on a stretcher toward the NERV Medical Ward.

A short eternity later, Misato was informed that while the ordeal had left Shinji unconscious, the Third Child had sustained no significant injuries.

Misato breathed a sigh of relief when she heard this. Now she _wouldn't_ have to hate herself forever.

Also, now that she had the critical information, she felt like she was out of neutral, like she could act again and no longer needed to wait to be contacted. And for her first order of business…

"Ritsuko," Misato said. "Can I talk to you for a moment? In private?"

The bottle blonde winced but nodded in agreement, and the two left the control room, soon arriving at an isolated and out-of-the-way chamber.

"Misato," Ritsuko began, "I—"

She didn't get any further before Misato grabbed two handfuls of the scientist's lab coat and roughly pulled her forward, until their faces were mere inches apart.

"What the hell is _wrong_ with you?" Misato hissed. "You knew that Unit Zero's buggy, you knew it had gone berserk before, and you could have disconnected the internal battery so the thing would stop the moment you ejected the umbilical cable. But instead you were in such a rush to cover your own ass that you put Shinji's life in danger, Dr. It-Would-Take-Too-Long-To-Explain-Why-This-Isn't-A-Dumb-Idea."

Looking into Misato's enraged eyes, Ritsuko could only swallow. The former Ops Director was not, Ritsuko knew, a violent person by nature. She was, however, a trained soldier, and Ritsuko had little doubt that Misato could easily hand her ass to her. And she looked more than pissed off enough to do it, too.

'_Mother hen'?_ Ritsuko thought, recalling her earlier musings. _More like a mother __**lioness.**_

"Ritsuko," Misato growled, her tone one of warning.

"I'm sorry!" Ritsuko exclaimed, mostly because it was the first thing that sprang to her mind. "I never thought for a moment that that would happen, I swear! All this time, I'd felt certain that Rei's first activation experiment went to hell because of Rei, not because of Unit Zero, so I didn't expect the same error to crop up with a different pilot in the plug. Even if I hadn't rushed this experiment, I wouldn't have bothered to disconnect the internal battery from the EVA, and Misato please _calm down_!"

She said all of this in a great rush, making herself nearly incomprehensible.

Fortunately, Misato understood it anyway. The scientist's plea at the end of her frantic explanation brought the tactician back to herself, and she let go of Ritsuko's white coat and took a step back.

"Sorry," Misato said. "I just… lost it for a second there."

"I could tell," Ritsuko muttered, then noticed that Misato was leaving. "Where are you going?"

"Where do you think?" Misato replied.

* * *

Shinji's awakening a few hours later was not something that came quickly, or pleasantly. For several seconds as he gradually regained consciousness, no longer in the soothing dark oblivion but not quite back in the land of the living, the experiences he'd endured inside Unit Zero came back to him. Thoughts and emotions that weren't his own swirled crazily through his mind, filling him with a terror he couldn't express.

And then his eyes opened, finally bringing _that_ nightmare to an end.

Shinji realized he was panting, and that his heart was jack-hammering inside his chest. He was relieved that he was laying down; his whole body felt limp, and he was certain that he'd have collapsed if he'd been upright.

He looked up at the bland, orderly tiles above him and sighed softly. _Another unfamiliar—_

"Hey, you're awake!"

The unexpected voice caused Shinji to jump, nearly sending him off the bed and causing a number of the springs in the mattress to squeak loudly as his weight came back down on them.

"Whoops, looks like I startled you there. Sorry, Shinji-kun," Misato said with a smirk, not looking or sounding apologetic at all.

"Uh, that's all right," Shinji said. "What are you doing here, Misato?"

"I thought I'd sit with you until you woke up," Misato said, and Shinji noticed her setting an automotive magazine down on the bedside table. "One of the benefits of not being the Operations Director anymore is that I'm not stuck on the command center for hours after every crisis or mishap."

"Well, I'm glad you're here," Shinji said, genuinely touched by the gesture. It was very nice to not be alone upon waking up in this place, for once. "What exactly happened, anyway?"

"Unit Zero went berserk right after the third-stage connections were completed," Misato said. "When we got you out, you were unconscious."

Shinji nodded. "I remember now," he said softly.

"Shinji-kun, I'm sorry," Misato blurted out.

The Third Child blinked. "Huh? But why?" he asked. "It's not like you could have done anything."

_That's what you think,_ Misato thought.

Not using the ring had been the logical choice, and even in hindsight, the correct one. Yet she couldn't shake the guilt at having allowed Shinji to endure more suffering, despite what he'd gone through today being negligible compared to some of the ordeals he'd experienced.

"I knew something stank about that experiment the minute Ritsuko announced she was going to be doing it," Misato said. "I should have put the brakes on it, but I let her convince me that it was all fine."

"You couldn't have known for sure that it would go wrong," Shinji said quietly.

Misato smiled weakly and looked down at the boy who was trying to get her to stop blaming herself for what had happened to him, the boy who was the only great drive she had to fight the Angels which didn't involve her old hatred of the terrible monsters. In a way, he was the source of her super-powers, but she had failed to exert those powers on his behalf.

Of course, he didn't know that, and she wasn't going to tell him, which meant that he wasn't going to give up on trying to console her unless she pretended to be good and consoled.

"Yeah, I guess you're right, Shinji-kun," Misato said. "Now, why don't you get dressed so we can head home?"

* * *

Meanwhile, light years away from the planet Earth and her petty problems, a single point of golden light floated in the vast blackness of outer space. This lone yellow one was on the hunt, as he had been since his father had escaped the trap that should have ended him.

"Ring, scan for Abin Sur."

_"Unable to locate,"_ his yellow ring replied.

"Damn you!" Amon Sur hissed.

_"Unable to follow directive,"_ the ring said.

"Shut up," Amon spat.

_"Silent mode engaged."_

The Sinestro Corpsman rolled his eyes at this. His power ring's sudden inability to track his foe was maddening, and he was half-tempted to return to Qward to have it inspected. However, he had sworn that he wouldn't return without his father's ring, plucked from the man's cold, dead finger, and he intended to keep his vow.

Yet how could he, if his father continued to elude him?

"Ring," he said, "disengage silent mode."

_"Silent mode disengaged."_

"How much space traffic goes through this area?" he asked.

_"Minimal levels,"_ the ring answered. _"This area of Sector 2814 is home to few races possessing faster-than-light drives."_

"Then it might still be possible to follow the ion trail of father's ship," Amon reasoned aloud. "If no other vessel has disrupted it…"

It would be a long and painstaking task, even with his ring's assistance. Following a ship's ion trail was a laborious chore with no guarantee of success at the best of times, which was why Amon hadn't even considered it until now. The trail would surely have deteriorated badly after so much time.

Yet what other choice did he have with his ring so stubbornly refusing to aid him in tracking down his father? Amon couldn't even guess at the reason for its stubbornness, or at least, so he told himself.

"I guess it's time to follow the ions," Amon grumbled, not looking forward to the task at all.

* * *

Several days of relative quiet followed the disastrous cross-compatibility experiment, which eventually stretched into weeks of relative quiet. Everyone concerned put the debacle behind them, though of course they didn't forget the event, and life took on an unusually normal pace for the people who worked at NERV.

It was on one of these abnormally normal days that Misato found herself and Ritsuko discussing another surprisingly normal event that was coming up.

"Have you bought a gift for Yumi's wedding yet?" Ritsuko asked.

"Nope. I'll have to go pick something up after work," Misato said, then sighed. "All these weddings are murder on my bank account."

"Tell me about it," Ritsuko grumbled. "It seems like everyone's getting married all at once. I guess everyone wants to get hitched before they turn thirty."

_Thank you, I needed to be reminded that I'm on the verge of being old—or at least, not _young_ anymore—and that it's looking like I'll be left sitting on the shelf,_ Misato thought, rolling her eyes.

"So have you decided what you're going to wear yet?" Misato asked, wanting to shift the conversation to happier subjects.

"Probably that old green dress of mine," Ritsuko said. "I can't really afford to get a new one right now. What about you?"

"Hmm," Misato muttered, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "The blue one's too worn to wear to something as nice as a wedding. I guess I'll wear the orange one."

"The orange one?" Ritsuko frowned, surprised. "The orange one still fits you?"

"Like a dream," Misato said smugly, running her hands down along the sides of her slim waist. "I tried it on just last night to be sure."

Ritsuko's eyebrow twitched. "Let me get this straight: you live off a diet of beer and instant junk—"

"Hey, I don't eat nearly as much instant stuff as I used to since Shinji moved in," Misato interrupted.

Rolling her eyes, Ritsuko continued, "You liv_ed_ off a diet of beer and instant junk for years, and now you live off a diet of beer and _slightly_ less instant junk… and you can _still_ squeeze into that dress?"

"No squeezing involved," Misato said. "I told you, it fits like a dream."

"Bitch," Ritsuko grumbled.

Misato smirked, enjoying Ritsuko's envy. "So, how are things going around here? With the science stuff, I mean."

Ritsuko had to resist the urge to roll her eyes at having what she did being reduced down to "science stuff."

"All right, I guess," she said. "The delays in the major projects caused by the budget cuts have given me some time to get around to a number of minor tasks that have been left undone for too long."

Misato nodded. "Hey, Ritsuko, you know what tomorrow is, right?" she asked, changing the subject once again.

"…Yumi's wedding?" Ritsuko replied, confused by the question.

"Well, yes, but I meant for Shinji, and the Commander, too, I suppose," Misato said.

"The anniversary," Ritsuko said, understanding what Misato was getting at now. "Yes, I know about it."

"Shinji's been getting more… I don't know, distant, I guess, the closer we get to it," she said. "He's really dreading going to the grave with his father. I don't know what to do."

"I wouldn't do anything," Ritsuko said. "The situation between Shinji and the Commander is incredibly complex, in the way that only human emotions can be complex. I don't think there's much of a chance of anyone, including the two of them, understanding it. And if you can't understand the situation, you can't make it better."

"Maybe," Misato said softly.

"Besides, the whole thing will pass tomorrow, one way or another," the scientist added. "Just a wait a day and this'll all blow over."

"Logical advice," Misato said.

_Pity I don't think I'll be able to take it,_ she added silently.

* * *

Familiarity breeds contempt, or so the old saying goes. It was an idiom whose meaning had mostly eluded Shinji Ikari, but that day, he was starting to figure it out.

He pressed the stop button on his SDAT, tired of listening to the classical pieces that had been his only constant companions throughout his life. Ordinarily impressed by the music, today he was merely tired of it.

He'd been listening to it a lot lately, more and more as the anniversary approached, and, loathe though he was to admit it, he was starting to get rather sick of it.

Still, Shinji had long ago ceased to listen to the music purely for the sake of enjoyment. These days, his primary reason for starting his SDAT was to be distracted from the outside world and its trials and tribulations for a little while.

He sighed softly. The Third Child was laying on his side on the bed in his room. He turned over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.

_It's been years since I went to Mother's grave with Father,_ he thought. _How am I supposed to face him… or her? I ran away the last time and never had the strength to go back._

Suddenly, he heard voices from outside his room.

"Hey, Misato," Asuka spoke. "Welcome home. Can I borrow some of your lavender perfume for my date tomorrow?"

"No," Misato replied. "That stuff's not for kids."

Even through his door, Shinji could hear Asuka "hmph" in response to that.

"Where's Shinji?" Misato asked.

"In his room," Asuka said. "He's been moping a lot more than usual lately."

"It's the… thing he's supposed to do with his father tomorrow," Misato said. "It's worrying him."

"I don't see why having to spend a few hours with his father is such a big deal for Shinji, even if he hates the man," Asuka replied.

"Shinji doesn't hate his father," Misato said, then added something that the Third Child didn't catch.

He heard the sound of feet approaching his room, so he was unsurprised when it slid open, revealing Misato, still dressed in her NERV uniform. "Hi, Shinji," she greeted him.

"Hello, Misato," he replied.

She walked over to the side of his bed and then squatted down until she was roughly eye level with him. "Listen, Shinji-kun, about tomorrow…"

She trailed off, and Shinji turned his head to face her. "Yes?"

"I know you're anxious about the whole thing," Misato said, "but you can't let your fear overcome you, and worrying won't get you anywhere. You have to confront even the most awkward and uncomfortable situations, because running away just makes things worse. What will be, will be. Just remember tomorrow that you have nothing to be ashamed of, you've saved the world, and any sane parent would be proud to be able to call you their son."

He smiled weakly at her. "I'll try," he said.

Misato smiled back him. "Good."

Her piece spoken, his guardian left the room, sliding the door shut behind her. Once she was gone, Shinji sighed softly, then, after a moment of consideration, pressed the play button on his SDAT.

He mused over what Misato had said as Bach flooded his ears. She was correct in saying that worrying wasn't doing anything for him; it would be simpler and probably less unpleasant to just confront the situation head on. So, all in all, Misato's advice had been quite sound.

_Pity I don't think I'll be able to take it,_ he thought.

If she was in his place, _Misato_ would have been able to walk into that graveyard with her head held high, unashamed and unafraid of Gendo Ikari. He, however, was another story, and just knowing that his anxiety served no purpose wasn't enough to release him from it.

He wasn't strong like Misato was.

* * *

The next day, Misato headed out for the wedding, not very much looking forward the experience. She hadn't seen much of Yumi since college, and in any case, the whole event just served to remind her that nobody was going to be marrying _her_ any time in the foreseeable future.

However, she did what she always did in such situations, namely sucking it up, forcing a smile onto her face, and attending. She was just glad that space limitations in the church meant that she only had to go to the reception.

"Hello, ladies," Kaji greeted Misato and Ritsuko as he approached the two women. "I hope I'm not late for the party."

"No. Actually, you're right on time," Ritsuko said, sounding surprised.

Kaji gave her a lopsided grin. "I guess becoming Operations Director is actually making me a responsible figure. Imagine that."

Of course, responsibility had nothing to do with why Kaji had arrived at the reception on time. He was supposed to have met with one of his contacts beforehand, but with his new duties and the increased scrutiny from NERV that came with it, it just wouldn't have been wise to keep that particular appointment.

_Have to hand it to Ikari,_ he thought. _Bastard outmaneuvered me but good. Still haven't figured out how to get back into the game yet._

"Let's find a table, shall we?" Ritsuko suggested.

The three sat down, making largely meaningless small talk as they ate. Eventually, the bride and groom had the first dance, and the floor was open and available to any other couple that wished to use it.

Kaji smiled roguishly at Misato as a slow song started up. "Care to dance, Misato-chan?"

"I appreciate the offer, but no thanks," Misato replied in a dry tone.

"Why not?" Kaji pressed. "You're just sitting there, looking rather lonely."

"Maybe I don't want to be seen dancing with the man who was willing to surrender the city to the Angels without firing a shot," Misato replied, which instantly killed Kaji's boyish grin.

She'd been bring that up a lot lately. Part of her knew it was unfair, but it wasn't fair of him to have come back into her life after so many years and start trying to pursue her all over again either, not when she (mostly) didn't want that. So lately she'd been countering Kaji's advances with reminders of his recent humiliation.

Unfair or not, it always killed the mood.

"Again with this?" Kaji asked. "Misato, I did what I thought was right."

"And you were wrong, dead wrong," Misato said. "We could've lost the whole city because of that."

"Okay, so maybe I made a mistake," Kaji scowled. "At least I didn't run away from the position over it."

"What?!" Misato snapped. "I did _not_—"

"Would you two please _shut up?_" Ritsuko hissed. "You're making a scene."

Misato and Kaji looked about, both realizing that most of the other guests nearby were looking at them. They must have been speaking more loudly than they'd realized. The two awkwardly turned away from the multiple stares.

"Look," Ritsuko said, "why don't you two both just calm down, have a drink, and promise not to talk about work anymore today?"

"Actually, I think it would be better if one of us left," Misato said, "and I'm volunteering. I'll see you at work."

"Wait, Misato, that's not necessary," Ritsuko said.

"Maybe not, but it's probably for the best," Misato replied, grabbing her handbag.

With that, she slipped out of the reception hall, nobody taking much notice of her exit, as she'd expected. It was probably petty of her to just bail like that, but she couldn't bring herself to care much at the moment. She just hadn't been able to take being around the blissful bride and groom, as well as the happy guests, and having to pretend to be happy herself even when the whole thing was just making her feel miserable and lonely. Having her old flame there, having him be able to see right through her mask, and trying to take advantage of her loneliness to rekindle something that was better left in the past didn't help matters, either.

_Geeze, what's wrong with me?_ She wondered. _I'm usually not this gloomy._

Misato shook her head in an attempt to clear it as she stepped outside the reception hall and onto the parking lot. She was surprised to discover how low the sun was in the sky. She'd been in there for longer than she'd realized.

Shrugging, Misato got into her car and peeled away, heading for home.

* * *

_"It's time. I'm leaving now," Gendo announced._

_"Father, I'm, um, I'm glad I got to talk to you today," Shinji said nervously._

_"…I see," Gendo replied, then got into the VTOL that had come for him. _

_Shinji stood and watched as the aircraft took off, its downdrafts blowing harshly at him and kicking up clouds of dust. For just a moment, the Third Child spotted Rei in one of the windows of the VTOL. She offered him a small, sympathetic smile, but Shinji still felt an ugly spike of jealousy shoot through him._

_Then the plane took off into the sky, and Shinji was alone._

* * *

In the present time, Shinji lay on the couch in the apartment, which was currently empty save for himself and Pen-Pen. He couldn't get how the scene at the graveyard had played out from his mind. It had not gone as badly as he'd feared, but it _had_ gone about as poorly as he could have _realistically_ expected, he realized.

_Shot me down again,_ he mused with a sigh. _Maybe I'm just an idiot for trying._

It wasn't the first time he'd had this particular thought.

Shinji sat up and turned to Pen-Pen. "What do you think, boy?" he asked. "Is it a pointless cause?"

"Wark!"

Shinji sighed. "Yeah, that's about what I thought you'd say."

He leaned against the couch, allowing his mind to drift, this time toward his mother. It was ironic how much he missed the woman, considering that he couldn't even remember what she looked like. She represented a mostly forgotten but still happier time in his life.

Shinji realized then that his hands were itching for his cello, probably because it was the only thing he had of his mother. He rose from the couch to go and retrieve the instrument.

And it was at that exact moment that the door to the apartment opened, and someone walked in.

"I'm home!" he heard Misato call out.

Shinji went toward the front door to greet his guardian. "Hello, Misato. I didn't think you'd be back so…" he trailed off as he walked into the short hallway that linked the front door to the rest of the apartment.

Misato was wearing a stunning orange dress with a plunging V-neck that showed her figure to perfection. Not that the purple-haired woman had ever made any effort to conceal her curves, but she had never worn anything that _displayed_ them nearly so well around Shinji before.

"Hi, Shinji-kun," Misato replied, not noticing his stunned look. "How did it go today?"

Being reminded of the trip to the graveyard with his father was like being dunked in a bucket of ice water, making it easy for Shinji to take his attention off of Misato's figure.

"Um, all right, I guess," he lied.

Misato clearly didn't believe him, but to Shinji's relief she decided not to pursue the matter. "Well, at least it's over, right?"

He noticed a certain sadness about her, quite unlike her usual boisterousness. "Why are you back so early?" he asked.

"Oh, well something came up," she answered vaguely. "Just as well, really. I don't enjoy formal functions all that much."

"Oh," was his noncommittal reply.

"So, what were you up to?" she asked.

"Nothing really," he answered, neglecting to mention that he'd been about to get his cello before she showed up.

He was too embarrassed to play when somebody was actually _listening_, and knowing Misato, she'd probably insist upon a private performance.

"Okay, then," Misato said. "I'm going to get changed."

Shinji nodded and headed back to the couch. Given the mood he was in, which was not exactly a sociable one, it probably would have made more sense for him to head to his room. However, he felt rather worried about Misato; being gloomy was situation normal for him, not for her. So he felt strangely compelled to remain and keep an eye on her.

Why he felt this, he couldn't fathom; it wasn't like he could actually _do_ anything if she needed to be comforted or something. He'd _always_ been useless in such situations.

And yet he stayed. To make it look like he was doing something, Shinji put on his SDAT player's headphones, but didn't press play. He'd finally listened to enough classical music to have grown well and truly sick of it, at least for a while.

Misato returned a few minutes later, clad in her usual denim shorts and a loose T-shirt. She glanced at Shinji, then headed over to the fridge and grabbed herself a can of Yeibisu, which she cracked open and began to sip with less than her usual level of gusto.

Minutes dragged. Misato nursed her can of beer. Shinji pretended to be listening to music. Pen-Pen lay on the couch, the only occupant of the apartment who was currently content with his lot in life.

Finally, Misato could take the stifling quiet no longer. "Hey, Shinji-kun, let's do something."

"Huh?" he replied, probably too quickly for someone who was ostensibly listening to music.

"Well, it's like last time, except this time both of us are bummed, not bored," Misato said. "C'mon, Shinji-kun, what do you say? You had fun last time, didn't you? With the exception of the whole armed robbery and stuff, of course." She quickly added.

Shinji briefly considered it. He _had_ enjoyed himself last time, and he really didn't see himself doing much of anything but wallowing in his melancholy if he stayed home that night.

"All right," he decided.

Misato blinked, surprised that it hadn't taken more cajoling. Then she smiled. "Great! Just let me do something real quick."

The purple haired woman headed into her room, shut the door behind her, and quickly removed her power ring, which shimmered into visibility the moment it was off her finger. Not planning on having another run-in with armed criminals, Misato decided that she might as well take the night off entirely.

Besides, ever since the disastrous cross-compatibility experiment, the ring had been serving as a silent but constant reminder of how she'd simply left Shinji to his fate because she was concerned for her own hide. Normally she ignored these feelings and wore the ring all the time anyway, but it was something she definitely didn't want to think about that evening.

Stowing her ring safely in one of her dresser drawers, she headed back out into the kitchen where Shinji was waiting for her.

"So, where are we going this time?" Shinji asked as they headed out of the apartment and toward the building's elevator.

"Well, why don't you pick?" Misato suggested.

"Me?"

"Sure, why not?" Misato said. "I'm sure you can think of a place."

"Hmm, maybe…"

* * *

Not much later, the door to the Katsuragi apartment opened, and a certain redhead strode in, wearing the relatively fancy green dress she'd donned for the blind date Hikari had set her up on.

She hadn't wanted to go that date to begin with; her friend had sort of cajoled her into it. And the whole thing had been even worse than Asuka had feared. First the guy had taken her to an _amusement park_, like she was some little kid. Then, to add insult to injury, the guy had spent nearly all the time they'd been together talking about one thing and only one thing only: the Green Lantern.

_I know comprehending the female mind at all is simply beyond most males, but is it _so_ difficult to figure out that when you're out on a date with a woman, it's a bad idea to keep rambling on about a different woman?_ Asuka wondered, not able to muster any regret for having ditched the guy halfway through the so-called 'date'.

Strolling into the kitchen, Asuka found no sign of either Shinji or Misato. What she did find was a note for her that had been attached to the refrigerator with a magnet.

"'Dear Asuka,'" the Second Child read aloud, "'Me and Shinji have decided to go out and do something. Probably won't be back for dinner. Money in cupboard for you to order out in case you didn't eat on your date. Misato."

Asuka rolled her eyes and sighed as she crumpled up the note, feeling an odd spike of resentment. Misato and Shinji had been spending an unusually large amount of time together lately, and she never got invited along.

_Not that I'd want to go along, anyway,_ she thought sourly in an attempt to console herself that mostly worked.

Well, fine. If she was without her roommates for the night, she might as well make use of the evening, she decided, heading for her room. Once there, Asuka opened up her closet, then went rummaging through it, searching for something in the back. Eventually, she withdrew a white leotard, a red cape, red boots, red gloves, a red mask, and a blond wig.

_Time to remind everyone who the number one superwoman in town is,_ Asuka thought as she began to change clothes, part of her mind going back to the series of events that had led to her becoming a super-heroine to begin with.

Some time around her arrival in Japan, Asuka had begun developing incredible powers, including awesome physical strength, the ability to fly, seeming invulnerability from all physical harm, and more.

_Why_ she had developed these powers remained a mystery to her. Kaji had recently tracked down some information—without knowing precisely why Asuka had wanted that information—which might help her shed some light on the subject but with Akagi suddenly feeling the need to look useful and now the date Hikari had persuaded her into going on, Asuka hadn't had an opportunity yet to follow that lead yet.

Upon first discovering her powers, Asuka hadn't planned to do much besides hide them, fearing that such radical anomalies in her physiology would cause NERV to boot her from the entry plug. Later on, annoyance at the level of recognition another superwoman got compared to the dearth of accolades the EVA pilots received had driven her to put on a cape.

And though Asuka would have been loathe to admit it, the adulation her alter ego received was an increasingly necessary balm for her pride, which was getting wounded at NERV with disturbing regularity by the Third Child and his infuriating talent for EVA piloting.

_Bad enough I have to compete with the Wonder Girl. Now everyone can't shut up about the Green Lantern, either,_ Asuka thought as she pulled on her gloves. _I could have stopped the Angel, too, if only I wasn't stuck in the command center at Matsushiro!_

Affixing her mask and then putting on her wig, Asuka finally finished donning her costume. She then quickly looked about with her X-ray vision, confirming that no one was looking at her window. With a nod, she opened said window, and then Power Girl went soaring off into the sky above Tokyo-3.

* * *

Meanwhile, hundreds upon hundreds of miles above the ground, a single figure who was sheathed in yellow light looked down upon a great blue marble.

"Ring," Amon said, "what planet is this?"

_"Planet known as Earth by indigenous intelligent species,"_ the ring answered.

"Tell me of this indigenous species," Amon commanded.

A pair of yellow images appeared above his ring: yellow constructs of a human man and a human woman. They looked quite similar to Amon Sur's own race.

_"Humans,"_ the ring said. _"The dominant species on Earth. Strength level: Normal/sub-normal for beings of their stature. Notable abilities: None."_

"Why would my father come to a backwater world populated by such pathetic creatures?" Amon wondered aloud.

_"Unknown."_

"I wasn't asking you," he told his ring.

_"Acknowledged."_

"Well, no matter," Amon said. "Ring, calculate where my father's ship went down."

A golden map of the Earth appeared above his ring. _"Based on the ion trail, the current position of the planet, its rate of rotation, and the speed with which it orbits its star, Abin Sur's ship landed approximately here,"_ it said, a point on a large island to the fear east starting to blink.

"What's the nearest major population center to that point?" Amon asked.

_"Tokyo-3."_

"My father is probably there," Amon said. "Ring, take me to Tokyo-3."

His ring obeyed as it always did, and soon Amon Sur was streaking toward the planet, leaving a brief trail of golden light in his wake. It wasn't long before he had entered the atmosphere, and soon after that, he was hovering above the city that the humans called Tokyo-3.

_Who numbers cities?_ He wondered, before dismissing the thought and turning his mind to the task at hand.

"Ring, scan for Abin Sur."

_"Unable to locate."_

"Argh!" Amon growled in frustration. "The Green Lantern! Locate the Green Lantern of Sector 2814!"

_"Unable to comply. The Green Lantern of Sector 2814 is not currently wearing a power ring."_

Amon frowned. "Father isn't wearing his ring? But why?"

_"Un—"_

"I wasn't asking you!" Amon snapped.

The Sinestro Corpsman took several deep breaths. He was tired of this chase, tired of making war against his father, tired of not yet having proved that he was better than the old man, and tired of his father's resilience. He was so frustrated that he just wanted to destroy something.

_Actually, that's not a bad idea,_ he thought.

Unable to beat him or not, his father _would_ come and fight him if he started tearing apart these puny humans.

A malevolent grin forming on his face, Amon Sur began to fly downwards, toward the city below.

"I wonder if these humans have ever had to deal with hostile aliens before?" Amon mused as he searched for a target.

The Sinestro Corpsman eventually settled upon a wide but only one-story tall structure that he didn't know (and didn't care) was a movie theater. A great blast of golden death erupted from his ring, streaking straight toward the building.

Even the armored structures that the city bristled with while in wartime formation could had never stood up to an energy blast from a Sinestro Corps power ring. The movie theater practically _exploded_ under the force of the attack, broken chunks of concrete flying everywhere, metal twisting and melting, and fires breaking out in a dozen different places. People screamed and went running as they saw the sudden carnage.

* * *

"Ack!" Shinji exclaimed as he was blinded by a flare of light.

"Oh, sorry about that, man," a guy with a camera in his hands said. "Didn't mean to get you in the eyes with the flash like that, but you stepped right into my shot."

"No, it was my fault," Shinji said as he blinked away the spots. "Sorry about ruining one of your nature shots."

"Eh, it's no big deal," the amateur photographer replied.

"Well, this trip to the park thing just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?" Misato teased as they walked off, leaving the cameraman to his own devices.

"I guess we should have gone to see a movie like you suggested," Shinji said.

"Don't get me wrong, Shinji-kun, I like nature as much as the next girl," Misato said, "but there isn't really much to do here except walk around and look at trees."

"I'm sorry," Shinji said.

"Hey, it's no big deal," Misato said. "I probably don't get enough fresh air, anyway, being stuck down in the Geofront as often as I am."

"I guess, but you're bored here," Shinji said.

Misato opened her mouth to make a reply, but then she spotted a small structure right next to the path and grinned. "Well, I just found something that we can do."

"What?" Shinji asked.

Misato pointed at the little building, and Shinji read the sign displayed on the front of it. "Rent roller skates?" he said. "But I don't know how to skate."

"Neither do I," Misato said, "but you see little kids doing it like pros all the time. How hard could it be?"

Without giving him further opportunity to protest, Misato headed straight for the small shop. Shinji just shook his head and followed her.

"Two pairs of roller skates for the evening please," Misato told the teenage girl working the little shop.

"What sizes?"

Misato told her, and soon she and Shinji were sitting on a nearby bench, trading their shoes for the skates. Shinji still wasn't entirely sure that this was a good idea, but at this point it felt as though protesting would have just been pointless whining, so he said nothing as laced up the wheeled footwear.

His guardian finished putting on her skates before he did and tentatively stood up, holding on the bench as she did so.

"See, Shinji-kun?" Misato said, letting go of the bench. "There's nothing to—"

She was cut off abruptly when her right foot suddenly slid forward, causing her to lose her balance and fall flat on her back. It was only by luck that her head landed on grass rather than the park's asphalt footpath and that she didn't hit the bench as she went down.

"Misato! Are you okay?" Shinji asked worriedly, forgetting that he had skates on as well and trying to stand up in his concern.

This, of course, caused Shinji to go tumbling as well. The Third Child fell forward, landed right on Misato's stomach, their bodies roughly perpendicular to one another.

"Sorry!" he exclaimed.

_I guess I should just count myself lucky that I didn't land in an embarrassing position,_ he thought.

"Why, Shinji-kun," Misato said, "I didn't expect you to be the kind of guy who has to be on top."

_Never mind,_ he thought as he felt his face heating up in a blush.

* * *

"Unusually quiet out tonight," Power Girl grumbled to herself as she flew over Tokyo-3.

She needed something big, really big. A bank robbery. A bridge collapse. A random psycho armed with a machine gun. Something really bad for her to fix.

Unfortunately for her, nothing remotely like that was happening, which was unusual. Tokyo-3 was a big city, and there was more often than not _someone_ in need of having their day saved by the likes of Power Girl. Not tonight, though.

"Well, this su—"

Power Girl cut herself off suddenly, a very distinctive sound reaching her super-sensitive ears. The sound of an explosion.

"Looks like I spoke too soon," she said. "Show time."

Throwing her fists out in front of her, Power Girl put on a burst of speed as she flew through the air, heading for the area where the sound had come from. In seconds, she found herself at the scene, which had once been one of Tokyo-3's few movie theaters, but was now a burning pile of debris. By the looks of it, everyone who had survived the destruction had already fled from the scene.

"The hell happened here?" Power Girl wondered as she flew down.

Putting the question aside for the moment, the super-powered girl inhaled deeply, and then blew out a powerful blast of air right at the fire. The flames flickered for a few seconds, then went out entirely from the force of the gust. Some of the previously burning debris now had a thin coating of frost.

"Well, that takes care of the fire," Power Girl said to herself. "Now—"

She was cut off by a loud _boom!_ from nearby and instantly turned her head toward the source of the noise. A five story building was imploding, sending dust and rubble everywhere.

And hovering in the air near all the carnage was a bald man with unnaturally red skin. He was in a yellow-and-black uniform, surrounded by a halo of golden light.

"Hey, baldy!" Power Girl shouted, flying over to the man. "Mind telling me what the _hell_ you think you're doing?!"

The man in yellow frowned at her, confused. "Who are you?"

"The name's Power Girl," she replied. "Now if you have a good reason why I shouldn't kick your ass, I suggest you tell me. You have about five seconds."

Amon Sur clearly wasn't impressed by the threat. "You're not the one I'm looking for," he said.

With that, a jet of yellow light streaked forth from his ring. It formed into a massive hand, which wrapped its fingers around Power Girl before the surprised super-heroine could react. Then the golden fist slammed her head-first into the street with enough force to shatter the asphalt.

"There," Amon said. "Now that _that_ distraction is taken care of…"

He was interrupted by the sound of shifting rubble and turned to look at the place where he'd created one hell of a pothole. His eyes widened slightly when he realized that the annoyance was getting up.

"All right, now you've done it," Power Girl said as she dusted herself off, looking none the worse for the wear. "Now you've gone and made me _mad_."

She flew at him, her fist extended as she knifed through the air toward him, rage burning in her blue eyes. Amon barely had the time to raise his ring and unleash a blast of yellow energy.

"Argh!" Power Girl shouted as the fear energy slammed into her like a battering ram made of golden light.

"Back into the dirt, dog!" Amon shouted.

"I don't think so!" Power Girl yelled back.

Then, to Amon's shock and horror, she began to advance toward him again, even as she continued to bear the brunt of his assault.

"Damn you, girl!" the Sinestro Corpsman hissed. "I don't have time for this!"

The beam of energy he was firing changed into a long length of golden chain, which immediately wrapped itself around Power Girl's form.

"Too bad. You're gonna have to _make_ time!" Power Girl shouted.

With one great burst of strength, she snapped the chains of light, which dissipated like smoke the moment they'd broken. Amon immediately unleashed another blast of energy at her, but this time Power Girl was ready, dodging the beam with a short burst of speed. However, the attack that was meant for her crashed into a storefront, shattering the front window and spraying glass everywhere, as well as igniting a fire within the shop.

"Damn!" the super-heroine grumbled.

As a general rule, she considered collateral damage to be a bad thing.

Power Girl could hear sirens approaching; emergency vehicles were on their way. The area, which was just about abandoned at the moment, was soon going to have people in it again.

Much as Power Girl liked having an audience, it was becoming very clear that allowing the fight to remain in the city was a bad idea.

_Guess I'll just have to make sure I _enjoy _this,_ she decided.

"There's no need for this!" Amon yelled as he fired another energy blast at Power Girl, which she dodged. "You're not the one I'm after!"

"You should know better than to make a girl feel _unwanted!_" Power Girl yelled, punching him in the gut as she spoke the last word.

Amon Sur's mouth opened in a wordless scream of agony, and part of him realized dimly that the lone punch would have ended him if the protective field generated by his ring hadn't absorbed some of the force of the blow. Then he felt something clamp around his ankle, and the world became a blur as he was spun around at high speeds.

Then Power Girl released him, and he went soaring through the air above Tokyo-3, a golden comet with a tail of yellow light. The Sinestro Corpsman's momentum soon took him outside the city limits, into the countryside. He bounced off the grassy landscape several times like a stone skipping over the surface of a pond as he continued to travel away from the city. The badly dazed ring-slinger didn't regain his bearings until he was perilously close to the mountains outside the city.

"Ahh!" Amon exclaimed in fright, even as he raised his ring, creating constructs of several large cushions for him to impact on rather than the unyielding rock he was set for.

"I don't suppose you've had enough and are willing to surrender quietly?"

With a growl, Amon looked up and saw the loathsome little girl hovering above him. She had her arms crossed over her chest and was looking down at him a superior smirk.

Amon Sur's eyes narrowed. This girl had nothing to do with why he'd come to this primitive ball of mud, but she'd just moved to the top of his list of priorities regardless.

Now she would burn like his power.

"No surrender," Amon said, just before unleashing a hurricane of golden light from his ring.

A half a dozen beams of yellow raced around Power Girl's form, instantly transforming into constructs of an elaborate series of shackles and other bindings. The super-powered girl immediately put her incredible strength to the task of breaking free, and the constructs began to crack almost instantly, but she still wasn't able to free herself in time to evade Amon's next assault.

A half-dozen figures were formed from Amon's yellow light, each one twenty feet tall and taking the form of a warrior from an alien world. They looked like humans, but they all wore a helmet with embellishments that looked like wings on the sides, and each held what looked like a thunderbolt in one hand. As one, these constructs hurled their weapons at Power Girl.

"Ahhh!" the super-heroine screamed as the faux bolts of electricity crashed into her and exploded, somehow not damaging the chains and shackles of golden light that were draped around her form in the least.

"You will _fear_ me before you die, girl!" Amon yelled, creating further constructs to bind Power Girl, even as he also sent constructs of several missiles flying at her. "You will look up to me with terror, and you will _beg_ me to grant you the sweet release of _death_!"

Power Girl would have told Amon to go to hell if she'd been able to speak. However, enduring the constant, withering assault had momentarily stripped her of that ability. The Sinestro Corpsman was throwing everything he had at her, and it _hurt_. She wasn't very used to pain any more. Since her invulnerability had come to her in earnest, she tended only to feel it while she was piloting and her EVA was injured. So that this glow bug was actually hurting her was shocking.

_This guy's powers look a lot like the Green Lantern's, except he's yellow. Are they related somehow?_ A part of her mind managed to think through her pain and surprise. _And even if they are, how does that help me? Not like I know the Green Lantern's weak point or anything._

"Do you feel it?" Amon taunted, not letting up his assault for an instant. "The cold fingers of terror wrapping themselves around your heart? You must know even you can't withstand this for much longer."

Even if she hadn't been in pain at that moment, Power Girl couldn't have responded. The ever-increasing layers of restraints he was placing upon her wouldn't have let her talk. Indeed, she was so encased in Amon's constructs that she resembled a mummy, one trapped within plates of metal and chains formed from golden light rather than wrappings of cloth. Only her eyes remained exposed to the world outside her luminous cocoon.

Fortunately for her, that was enough.

Power Girl's eyes changed from pale blue to dark red, then to fiery orange. Twin beams of red-orange light arced out from her pupils, heading straight for Amon Sur. The fear soldier released a yelp of surprise, barely managing to create a shield construct to protect himself in time.

However, Power Girl's counter attack still had its effects. For one thing, the beams of fiery light bounced off Amon's shield, striking two of his soldier constructs, shattering them instantly. For another, it disrupted his concentration. The barrage of missile constructs he'd been bombarding her with winked out of existence, and the integrity of the constructs that were restraining Power Girl waned.

"_Raugh_!" the super-heroine growled, applying every ounce of strength she had to the task of breaking free in her enemy's moment of weakness.

The layers and layers of restraints around her finally shattered, evaporating like all the rest of Amon's broken constructs. She was free.

"You're persistent, girl, I'll give you that much!" Amon practically screamed.

The yellow warrior allowed the thunderbolt-throwing soldiers to wink out, willing new constructs to leap from his ring instead. A woman who would have been attractive if not for her dagger-like teeth, surrounded by a trio of four-legged beasts the likes of which Earth had never seen. A nine-foot-tall, incredibly broad and muscular brute of a being with fangs as long as the girl's arm. A vaguely human-shaped blob of viscous liquid, in which the bones of fallen foes floated. Constructs of all these beings and more got between Amon and Power Girl. All of them wore the same symbol that was emblazoned upon Amon's chest somewhere on their person.

"This won't stop me!" Power Girl shouted as she flew straight _through_ one of his constructs, destroying it utterly.

_Damn, she's fast,_ Amon thought as Power Girl proceeded to tear into the rest of his constructs. _She's destroying them almost as fast as I can will them into existence. Doesn't this bitch ever get tired?_

Suddenly, as though the universe itself was trying to prove that it understood the meaning of irony, his power ring spoke up.

_"Warning. Power levels approaching 1.0 percent."_

"Damnation," he hissed, not having realized until now how much power his full-scale assault had taken up.

He needed a moment to recharge, but he doubted that his foe would allow him to have one. Perhaps it was time he employed the power that was unique to the yellow rings of Qward. Perhaps he should have done as much from the beginning.

"Power Girl!" Amon called to his foe. "What do you fear?"

"What?" Power Girl asked, just before a flash of yellow light shot out of his ring, irritating her eyes but seemingly doing little else.

Then Power Girl brought her hands up to her head. Her eyes widened. "What the hell are you doing to me?!" she shouted. "Get out of my mind, damn you!"

Amon Sur, of course, did not comply. He allowed the constructs of his fellow Sinestro Corps members to dissipate. Power Girl didn't take the opening this provided her with. She was feeling something not of her inside her mind, something alien and hungry. The world began to take on an almost dream-like quality, and suddenly she wasn't entirely sure of where she was any longer.

A new constructed form rose from Amon's ring, but this time it was no fearsome warrior, no herald of a galactic scale reign of terror. This time it was just an enlarged version of a child's toy.

"Gott," Power Girl breathed as the human-sized construct of the doll approached her, its button eyes gleaming with incredible malice. "Gott, no."

The horrible thing from her past was back. It had taken her mother from her, and now it had come for her life. It was upset at having been hanged in her place, and it intended for the _right_ person to die this time.

Her heart thundering in her chest, Power Girl tumbled to the ground, the power of flight having seemingly deserted her. She barely noticed, so consumed with terror at facing this specter from her past.

Meanwhile, Amon Sur tilted his head, wondering why a toy would invoke such terror in his enemy. However, he quickly shrugged the question off. He needed to recharge.

A circle of yellow light formed before him, and Amon reached his hand into it, into the pocket dimension it allowed him access to. After a moment, he withdrew a lantern power battery constructed of a bright yellow metal, similar to gold but so much more lustrous. He held his ring up to it.

"In blackest day, in brightest night," he began, "beware—"

He didn't get any further before a shriek pierced the air, a shriek that came from his foe.

There was one thing that Amon Sur had, understandably, failed to take into account when he'd used his ring to try and paralyze his enemy with terror.

Beneath the mask of Power Girl lay Asuka Langley Soryu. And now, with her mind flooded with terror, Asuka did what she had _always_ done when she was afraid.

Asuka Langley Soryu lashed out.

Amon Sur didn't have time to react as Power Girl plowed into him at top speed, not slowing down one bit after she'd rammed into him. Twin beams of orange light shot forth from her eyes. The blasts of intense heat quickly pierced his defensive shield, striking him in the chest and incinerating part of his uniform, then his skin, and finally several of his internal organs.

Then the two of them collided with one of the nearby mountains, the force of the impact striking the mighty landmark of stone hard enough that the side of the mountain cracked in a spider web pattern, and the resulting tremors were strong enough to just register on the Richter Scale. What undamaged organs Amon had left ruptured from the force of the impact. Rocks began to rain down from up above, burying nearly all of Amon Sur, leaving only his right hand exposed. A few shards of stone landed on Power Girl, but she barely noticed.

"Mein Gott," she said, propping herself up against her thighs and panting, more winded from the emotional ordeal than the physical one.

_Totally lost it there,_ she thought. _Oh well. Can't say I'll be losing much sleep over the psycho lightning bug here._

Suddenly, she heard a voice from nearby. Power Girl immediately prepared for a new fight, even though she couldn't believe that her enemy had survived what she'd done to him.

However, it wasn't Amon Sur who was speaking.

It was his ring.

_"Ring status report. Sinestro Corps member 2814 deceased."_

Power Girl frowned down at the thing, not at all sure why it was still doing anything with its wearer dead. Or why it felt the need to state the obvious, for that matter.

Then it removed itself from Amon Sur's finger and went flying off into the sky.

_"Sector scan 2814 for replacement sentient initiated."_

"Oh, _hell_ no!" Power Girl said. "Having to deal with one person wearing that thing was enough!"

She took to the sky, in hot pursuit of the yellow bauble, very much intent on destroying it. However, it was fast, and before she could catch up to it, it was nearby back to Tokyo-3.

_It's quick, but so am I,_ Power Girl thought, reaching out for the evil thing. She could _almost_ touch it.

_"Warning. Hostile life form in pursuit,"_ the ring said. _"Initiating counter measures."_

A blast of yellow light erupted from the ring, catching Power Girl by surprise and sending her reeling. By the time she'd regained control of her flight, the ring had escaped her sight.

Scowling, she narrowed her eyes and concentrated. Instantly, her X-ray vision kicked in, and virtually all of Tokyo-3 became visible to her. However, finding one little ring in Tokyo-3 was like playing the world's most difficult game of "Where's Waldo?" and after many minutes of fruitless searching, Power Girl finally gave in, deciding she wasn't going to succeed.

She'd never read the "Where's Waldo?" books much when she was younger; they were for little children.

With a frustrated sigh, Power Girl began to make her way back home.

* * *

Shinji had bruises all over the place. His knees were scraped up in a way that was common for children half his age. His ankles ached. He had at least half a dozen mosquito bites.

He was also smiling. Despite the number of spills both he and Misato had endured in their mostly failed attempts to teach themselves how to roller skate, he'd had fun. His guardian had found their inability to do what she'd seen several children do easily to be endlessly amusing. Her nearly constant laughter was infectious enough that even he'd caught it. The whole experience had made him feel more light hearted than he had in a very long while, and certainly more cheerful than he would have believed possible on this particular day.

"I had a really good time, Misato," Shinji said. "Thank you for convincing me to go out again."

"There's really no need to thank me, Shinji-kun," she replied. "I was feeling pretty down after going to that wedding. Spending time with you made me feel a whole lot better. Heck, if anything, I should probably be thanking you."

Shinji blinked in surprise. To the best of his knowledge, he had never been able to comfort anyone or lifted anyone's spirits when they were sad before. It was something he'd just accepted himself incapable of doing, but according to Misato, he'd done it without even trying.

"B-But, you made me feel better, too," he stammered in his confusion.

Misato grinned. "That's the best way. If we're both making each other happy, then nobody's imposing."

There was definitely a certain logic to that, Shinji decided as he and Misato entered the apartment.

"Well, well, well, looks like the happy couple finally decided to grace me with their presence," a grouchy looking Asuka observed as Shinji and Misato entered the kitchen.

"Did you wait up for us?" Misato asked, surprised.

Asuka was just sitting there at the kitchen table, and had apparently been doing nothing but nursing a can of juice.

"No," the Second Child shook her head. "I was just thinking."

"Oh," Misato said. "Well, anyway, sorry about ditching you, Asuka. You're so social that I thought you'd just go out, even if your date ended early."

"Whatever," Asuka grumbled, getting up from her chair and tossing her juice can into the garbage. "I'm going to bed."

"Uh, good night," Shinji said as she walked off.

"Yeesh, who spit in her rice bowl tonight?" Misato wondered once Asuka had disappeared into her room.

"Dunno," Shinji shrugged. "She's actually been pretty mellow lately. I wonder what's changed?"

"Whatever it is, I doubt she'll tell us about it," Misato said.

"You're probably right," Shinji agreed, then yawned. "Well, it is getting late. I think I'll turn in myself."

"All right," Misato said. "Good night, Shinji-kun."

"Night," he replied, then he, too, vanished into the hallway, leaving Misato alone in the kitchen.

"I really wish I wasn't too old for you," she mumbled to herself as she went to the fridge and grabbed herself a can of beer. "God, I'm turning into a broken record. It just can't ever happen. I have to deal with that."

She cracked her beer and for once didn't gulp down the contents all at once. Instead, she took a small sip, plopping down into the chair Asuka had recently vacated. She took another pull from her can, then set it down on the table.

And in doing so, she happened to notice something Asuka had drawn there in a small amount of spilled juice from the can the Second Child had been drinking from. It was a symbol, and a fairly simple one at that. At the center of it was a circle, and above that was a shape that looked vaguely like a handle. Two straight lines came out from the bottom of the circle. After a certain point, both of these lines suddenly began to curve, heading upwards.

Misato hadn't seen the symbol ever before in her life, and yet she somehow felt strangely uneasy while looking at it.

Then she shrugged and ran a hand across Asuka's "artwork," effectively erasing it. Putting the symbol from her mind, Misato finished her beer and then headed off to bed herself.

* * *

Meanwhile, halfway across the city, a certain Commander of NERV was already asleep in bed. Gendo Ikari knew that he might be called upon to confront a situation that would require all his mental acuity on a moment's notice, so he liked to be well rested whenever his schedule would permit it.

It took a lot of energy to manipulate the entire world into helping him get what he wanted, after all.

However, an uninterrupted night's sleep was not for him that evening. His slumber was rudely disturbed when a small object smashed its way through his bedroom window, the noise waking him instantly.

"What is it? Who's there?" he demanded, instantly alert.

It wasn't long before he spotted the yellow ring that was flying toward him.

_"Gendo Ikari of Earth,"_ it spoke, _"you have the ability to instill great fear."_

With that, the ring flew onto the middle finger of his hand before he could react to it. Yellow flames burned away the pajamas he'd gone to bed in, replacing them with a yellow and black and costume.

_"You have been chosen to represent space sector 2814,"_ the ring continued.

Gendo just stared wordlessly down at the thing. Part of him was understandably thrown for a loop by what was happening. However, another part was already calculating the possibilities this opened up, if this ring was what he thought it might be.

_"You will now be subjected to physiological and physical reconditioning. Preparing to transport sentient,"_ the ring announced.

Gendo's eyes widened. Disappearing for any length of time was unacceptable. SEELE was starting to realize he had an agenda that differed from theirs; they would pounce on any unexplained absence from him as an excuse to install one of their lapdogs into the position of NERV's Commander. If that happened, all his plans would be as dust.

He would never see Yui again.

"No," he grunted, feeling the ring _pulling_ at him, at his very being, and resisting it with everything he had. "I won't go."

_"Conflicting emotional resonance detected. Willpower overriding fear," _the ring reported.

"I won't…_go!_" Gendo hissed.

Suddenly, there was a brief flare of orange light by his right hand—a flicker of Adam's AT field by the looks of it. Gendo felt the ring's attempts to take him away suddenly cease.

_"Transport cancelled,"_ the ring announced.

He looked down at the thing, and it spoke to him one more time.

_"Welcome to the Sinestro Corps."_

* * *

Author's Notes: So much to say here. I was thinking of labeling this chapter an "interlude" since Asuka's the only one who does any super-heroing here. In the end, I decided against that, since this chapter's over 25 pages long (single spaced), and because Misato's still the focus in most of it.

A few notes about the Green Lantern comic. I didn't just make up the other Green Lanterns that Gendo mentioned to SEELE. The "dragon-like" one was Yalan Gur, a character who's now defunct thanks to retcons regarding the yellow weakness. The other was Abin Sur, who visited the Old West in the Legends of the DC Universe series. His enemy, knowing of the yellow weakness, equipped his lackeys with gold-tipped bullets. I figured it wouldn't be implausible for the legend to have become twisted into silver bullets being used instead. I'd also note that the ability Amon used on Asuka at the end there isn't something the average Sinestro Corpsman has ever done in the comics, but damn it, they _should_. The blue lanterns can show people their hopes, and the Star Sapphires can show people their true love, so the Sinestro Corps really should be able to show people their deepest fears.

So, anyway, yeah, Gendo now has a yellow power ring. He seems an appropriate candidate to me, since he's as big a control freak as Sinestro himself. Plus, I imagine that fear is how he controls most of the people under him, if not the most important ones. It should be also noted that, since Amon's attempt to recharge was interrupted, there's next to no juice left in that ring. We'll just have to see what the bastard king can do with it.

Also, as I'm sure you noticed, I've delayed the Eleventh Angel's attack. I have plans for that one, but the pieces weren't in place yet for me to execute them, hence the delay.

One thing I'd like to clear up, because there have been a lot of questions about it in reviews on the various SOE2 fics: all the stories are in their own separate continuity. A few of the women aside from the main one in each fic might also have super powers, but in no story is every lady a superwoman. This is basically the way in works in the original SOE series as well.

**D-scribe**, as I noted in the last chapter, Gendo's purpose for picking Kaji was to make him too busy to snoop around, not because he thinks Kaji is some tactical genius.

As for the color thing, maybe the combination of purple and green is just a lot more evocative of Eva for Shinji than blue by itself?

Shinji being the love interest in each story is something from the original SOE series that I'm trying to honor in the SOE2 series.

As I said earlier, not every superwoman is present in these fics, and Asuka and Rei were stuck in Matsushiro while the Tenth was attacking. Plus, as Eva pilots, they can't just disappear during an Angel battle.

Gendo _is_ more evil than the devil, and I think even he would be caught rather flat footed by something as massively out of left field as comic book superheroes showing up. Besides, Gendo tended to be _incredibly_ lucky in the series; it wasn't like he never did dumb things, it's just they never came back to bite him. It was like Murphy's Law simply didn't apply to him until the very end. We've never really seen him in crisis mode because when his luck finally ran out, he knew it was over and didn't bother trying to stop the end from coming.

Section Two sucked in canon, losing track of one of the Children more than once for no good reason. It's no stretch that they suck here, too.

As for the evacuation, Ritsuko seemed to think that evacuating was an option, and if anyone would know, she would. I was going to throw in a line about an Eva transport flying off with a huge container that was supposed to be Lilith, but since the city wasn't actually going to be destroyed anyway, I didn't bother. The pilots didn't evacuate in their Eva's because the things can only function for 5 minutes without a power cable, and there's no reason to assume such cables are available all over the Japanese countryside. Plus it probably costs a ton of money to activate an Eva. And I don't see what really could have gone "wrong" seeing as how the plan was to let the Angel win. And there was plenty of time for evacuating, so there was no need for the Eva's to cover the people's escape.

**Krow Blood**, while Shinji as a Red Lantern does make sense, I just don't see it happening in the future. Also, now I need mind bleach, too. Thanks a lot for sharing.

Well, this was long and rambling. So let me wrap this up by saying thanks as always to my readers, reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader.

* * *

Omake

Some Roles Only Work With One Gender, Okay?

"Is this enough fish yet, sempai?" Misato asked wearily, displaying a construct of a huge net that was filled to the brim with sea life.

"It's _never_ enough fish, Poozer!" Pen-Pen snapped. "Now get back to your training before I tell you that you can—"

He was cut off suddenly as something violet suddenly went streaking past them at incredible speeds.

"What was that?" Misato asked, watching the purple comet as it rapidly disappeared from sight.

"The legacy of Zamaron," Pen-Pen said grimly. "Follow me, rookie! It's time to go to work! We have to try and catch that thing before it finds a host!"

Pen-Pen flew off, Misato right behind him. Despite how dire Pen-Pen seemed to think the situation was, Misato couldn't help but smirk slightly.

_Who says penguins don't fly?_ She thought.

The two Green Lanterns soon arrived back at land, then pursued the glowing object to Tokyo-3, and then into Misato's apartment building.

"Why is it going into my home?!" Misato demanded.

"It's found a host," Pen-Pen said grimly.

Suddenly, there was a loud scream from inside the apartment.

"That was _Shinji!_" Misato exclaimed, increasing her speed.

She burst into her apartment through the veranda door, and then began to frantically look about, in search of the Third Child. "Shinji-kun?" she called.

"Shinji's not here," a voice that sounded suspiciously like the Third Child replied from one of the hallways. "But _I _am. The Star Sapphire!"

The transformed Shinji emerged into the main room, and Misato's eyes widened. The Third Child was clad in a one piece outfit that was a light violet that was just a shade or two away from being pink. On his head sat a white tiara that had a starburst emblem in the center.

"Now, Greens Lanterns, I…"

The new Star Sapphire trailed off as both Misato and Pen-Pen collapsed to the floor in gales of laughter, clutching onto their sides as they guffawed uncontrollably.

"Hey! Super villain giving a monologue here!" Star Sapphire shouted.

"S-Sorry, Shinji-kun, but you…you…you look…" Misato got no further before she again dissolved into giggles.

Star Sapphire's shoulders slumped. "Even as I super villain, I can't get no respect…"


	6. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Five: **The Angel of Fear, Part One

It was sometimes said by the members of NERV that whatever else Commander Ikari might be, he was completely and utterly unflappable. Of course, people's opinions on why this was varied greatly; some contended that Gendo Ikari was actually a moderately human-like robot, while others claimed that he simply had no soul, having sold it to the devil in exchange for command of NERV.

These wild theories were, of course, completely wrong, but it was true that Gendo was damn near unshakable, as proved by his calm, measured reaction to the alien bobble that had just attempted to whisk him off to god only knew where.

"What are you?" Gendo demanded of the yellow ring that sat upon his finger.

_"I am a power ring that is the standard weapon of the Sinestro Corps," _it answered in an otherworldly and vaguely menacing tone. _"I am capable of allowing you to wield the golden light of fear."_

"Wield the golden light of fear?" Gendo repeated skeptically.

_"This ring is capable of forming energy blasts, force fields, and constructs of whatever tool or weapon you desire," _it answered. _"This ring can also allow you to use the worst fears of others against them, and it acts as a link to the database containing all the knowledge of the Sinestro Corps."_

"Really?" Gendo asked, becoming intrigued. "Does that database contain any information about the Green Lantern, by chance?"

Two beams of light shone forth from the top of the ring he now wore, one of them forming a floating hologram of the simple emblem the emerald superwoman wore and the other coalescing into the symbol Gendo now had on his own chest.

_"The Sinestro Corps are sworn enemies of the Green Lantern Corps,"_ the ring answered.

"Indeed? Then I presume you know how to defeat one of them?" Gendo asked.

_"This ring is the ideal weapon for combating Green Lanterns, because it takes advantage of their yellow weakness,"_ the ring said.

"Yellow weakness?" Gendo asked, frowning.

_"There is an impurity present in the emerald light of willpower, from which the Green Lanterns draw their power,"_ the ring explained. _"It makes the green power rings utterly ineffectual against anything colored yellow."_

Gendo's eyebrows rose. Could the Green Lantern truly have such an easily exploited Achilles' Heel? He would like to believe it, but it seemed an outrageous idea that someone as powerful as the Green Lantern would be helpless against a mere _color._

Yet if it was true…

"What other sorts of information do you have, ring?" Gendo asked.

He spent the next two hours questioning his new ring on every topic he could imagine it might have useful information on, totally ignoring the lateness of the hour. It wasn't until he had thoroughly run out of questions that he began to actually experiment with the powers of the ring, forming a few simple constructs, starting with everyday items such as pens and paperclips and then moving onto firearms. However, he didn't get very far before the ring spoke up again.

_"Warning. Power levels approaching 0.0 percent."_

Gendo frowned. "Already?"

_"The previous Sinestro Corpsman of Sector 2814 nearly expended this ring's charge before it was passed on,"_ it explained.

"How do I recharge you, then?" Gendo asked.

_"You require the power battery, which was abandoned by the previous Sinestro Corpsman of this sector,"_ the ring informed him. _"This ring can guide you to it."_

"I can't go out wearing this," he said, gesturing down at the yellow and black costume the ring had garbed him in.

Immediately, the Sinestro Corps uniform turned into what looked like golden flames, which quickly dissipated into nothingness, leaving Gendo in his sleep clothes.

After quickly changing into one of his NERV uniforms, Gendo left his bedroom, then went to the ground floor of his house and grabbed the keys to the black sedan that sat out in front of his house. The Commander of NERV didn't drive often himself, having a driver to take him to headquarters and back, but for once, he had no desire to send someone out to perform the menial task for him. He would personally go and claim the power battery himself.

"Tell me where to go," he ordered the ring.

_"Acknowledged."_

As he drove through Tokyo-3, Gendo quickly discovered that the ring was a less considerate navigator than a standard GPS device; it told him when he had to turn too late from him to be able to do so smoothly, resulting in more than a little screeching of tires. Fortunately, it was still the middle of the night, and the city was not densely populated besides; there were not many other cars on the road.

_Where is this thing taking me?_ He wondered as he noticed that he seemed to be heading toward the city limits. _Why would the previous owner of the ring just leave the battery in the middle of nowhere? What happened to him?_

_"Right turn here," _the ring said.

He turned on the wheel sharply…and his eyes suddenly widened as he saw headlights bearing down on him. He realized too late that he was heading the wrong way down a one way street.

Gendo slammed down on the brake, as did the other driver, but there was too little distance between the two vehicles, and they were both going too fast. The Commander of NERV gritted his teeth as the two cars crashed right into one another with frightening amounts of force.

The next several seconds were a blur of pain and noise to him. When at last he regained his bearings, he realized that he was sitting on the street, apparently having been ejected from the car by the impact. He was unharmed however, and it wasn't hard for him to figure out why; a sphere of golden light surrounded his form. Either the ring had acted automatically to save him, or he had formed the construct on reflex.

No sooner had he registered the presence of the light than did it begin fade.

_"Power level 0.0 percent."_ His ring announced.

And with that, the previously shiny yellow metal became dull and lifeless. There was no charge left in the ring, and the battery was still far out of his grasp.

Gendo looked about until he found the driver of the other car. The man was obviously quite dead, which the Commander found something of a relief. He never would have allowed himself to vent even the tiniest fraction of his emotions if a perfect stranger was observing him.

"Damn it," he scowled, striking the ground with his fist.

He looked down at the ring again, an expression of disgust ghosting over his face. Unless he was able to locate the power battery somehow, the thing was nothing more than a worthless bobble, and he would have to spend precious favors owed to him in order to sweep the car crash under the rug.

However, he supposed that the night wasn't a complete loss. So long as the things the ring had told him were true, it had been very productive indeed.

* * *

"Magic," Ritsuko scowled darkly as she flicked the ashes from her cigarette into the overflowing ashtray she kept on her desk. "Magic is the only possible explanation for the Green Lantern's powers."

Trying to calm herself down, she took a long drag off of her cancer stick, recalling as she did so a rather famous quote which stated that any sufficiently advanced technology would appear magical to those who could not comprehend it.

"Having a bad day, Ritsuko?" a suave voice asked from behind her, causing her to start in surprise.

"Kaji," she said, turning her chair around to face him, "what are you doing here?"

"Nice to see you, too, Rits," Kaji replied jovially. "I was just coming to visit a friend."

"Ah, so you're playing the old 'I have tons of paperwork, but I don't want to do it, so I'll go and pester Ritsuko instead' game that Misato was so adept at," the scientist observed dryly, turning her chair back around to face her computer once more.

"Guilty," Kaji confessed ruefully, "so what are you doing?"

"Nothing productive," Ritsuko said with a little sigh, prompting Kaji to look over her shoulder and at her computer monitor.

His eyebrows rose at what he saw. "Why, Rits-chan, I didn't realize you had a thing for the Green Lantern," he smirked.

"It's not like that," Ritsuko growled, clearly frustrated. "You're aware that the Commander doesn't like the superwomen."

Kaji nodded, knowing as well as anyone that Gendo bitterly resented the presence of the super powered females who'd recently made themselves known in the city, as they sometimes made NERV appear unnecessary and thus colossally wasteful.

"Of course," Kaji said. "I fail to see how staring at a picture of the Green Lantern is going to help, though."

"Which is why I said I wasn't doing anything productive," Ritsuko grumbled, then sighed.

"Why fixate on the Green Lantern, anyway?" Kaji asked. "Why not one of the others?"

"Because Green Lantern's the one who single-handedly killed the Angel we didn't even try and fight," Ritsuko said, causing the new Ops Director to cringe slightly. "And because her powers…"

"What?"

"I guess they sort of annoy me," Ritsuko said. "They just make so much less sense than the others' powers do."

The Green Lantern seemed to utilize some kind of solid hologram technology, which would require force fields. However, why bother with the holograms at all, instead of just using the force fields? It was just a pure waste of energy so far as Ritsuko could tell, and it didn't help that the machinery required to imitate any one of the Green Lantern's constructs would have been the size of a building, while the jade heroine seemed to form them all from a tiny ring on her finger.

The other superwomen likewise irritated her inherently rational scientist's mind, too, especially with their ability to fly, but not to the same extent.

"Ritsuko, we're in NERV," Kaji said. "We're not in the business of things that make sense."

The bottle blond scientist smirked briefly at that, but the quip still didn't do much to improve her frustrated, surly mood. Silence fell in the office.

Kaji looked at the image of the Green Lantern that Ritsuko had on her computer screen again. "You know, she looks a bit like Misato," he commented thoughtfully.

"I guess there is a passing resemblance," Ritsuko said with a shrug.

"You don't suppose…?"

"What? That _Misato's_ the Green Lantern?" Ritsuko asked with a snort.

"Well, why not?" Kaji asked, grinning. "After all, she _did_ abruptly step down from the Operations Director post not long before Green Lantern first showed up."

"Please," Ritsuko scoffed, "Misato never had _those_ abs." She said, pointing at the image of the emerald superwoman.

"Really? And just how would you know exactly what our dear friend's body has looked like through the years?" Kaji asked with a grin.

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Ryoji," Ritsuko said, though she looked as amused as she was annoyed. "You know we roomed together in college, and she wasn't any more modest back then. If she wasn't that buff then, when she was younger and getting a lot more exercise, I seriously doubt she is now."

"I guess, but suppose…"

"You're not taking this idea seriously, are you?" Ritsuko asked, now becoming truly incredulous. "Look, Kaji, Misato was in the Matsushiro base while Green Lantern was in _outer space_. Plus, there's a very good chance Green Lantern was the one who killed the Ninth Angel, and Misato was trapped in an elevator at the time. I know it's surprising that she left the position you're now stuck with when she did, but unless the Green Lantern can be in two places at once, Misato can't be her."

"How do we know the Green Lantern _can't_ be in two places at once?" Kaji asked with a smirk, just for the sake of being stubborn, apparently.

"How do we know that the Green Lantern also can't change her gender on whim and is really the Commander?" Ritsuko countered flatly.

Kaji grimaced. "Well, you just sucked all the fun out of this conversation."

"Mm-hmm," Ritsuko grunted absently. "So, how did you even get here without your shadow following you to make sure you're not using your new status to dig into NERV secrets?"

"Chiron? I don't know," Kaji shrugged. "I haven't seen him since this morning."

Which was not, of course, to say that Section Two wasn't still keeping a stiflingly close eye on him, pretending to be doing so because he was "critical personnel" or some such other. It was just that the man who'd replaced Chiron was being far more unobtrusive and far less obnoxious about it.

Ritsuko, for her part, was surprised to hear this from Kaji; the chief of Section Two had been enjoying harassing the new Ops Director quite a lot.

"Huh," she said, "I wonder where he's gotten off to."

* * *

Goro Ichinawa, leader of the Blood Saviors, suspected that something was up when he was informed that he had a visitor. The only ones who would visit him in the jail cell they'd stuck him into were his fellow Saviors, and the Green Lantern had captured every single one when she'd stopped the divine sacrifice a while ago.

Nevertheless, he agreed to see whoever it was, and he was led to one of the visiting rooms. There, a barrier of bullet proof glass separated prisoner from visitor. Goro frowned when he saw who stood on the other side of the transparent divider.

It was a big man in a black suit. He cut an imposing figure, and his chiseled features made him look like he'd been carved out of granite rather than born like normal humans. Yet Goro wasn't entirely sure he'd have been able to pick the man out of a lineup; the suit and sunglasses he wore seemed to lend her a powerful air of conformity.

Sitting down in the lone chair on his side of the room, Goro picked up the phone that was necessary to communicate across the glass. The big man soon did likewise.

"Who are you?" Goro asked without preamble.

"Who I am isn't important," the man replied. "You are Goro Ichinawa, correct?"

"That's right," Goro answered warily.

"You were…apprehended by the Green Lantern some time ago, were you not?" the man asked.

"Yes," Goro answered, silently lamenting that the woman might have stopped him and his followers from preventing the end of the world.

"I want you to tell me about her," the man said.

Goro's eyebrows went up. Being the leader of a small cult, he was a shrewd operator. So instead of asking why his strange visitor wanted to know, he instead asked what it was worth to the man.

"A free ticket out of this place, if your information is useful," the man replied.

"What do you want to know?" Goro asked immediately.

"Did you notice her having trouble exerting her power on anything?" the man asked.

"Yes!" Goro answered at once. "Though she was easily able to defeat my followers, she couldn't use her power on me at all. Clearly, my god protected me."

"Uh-huh," the other man said in a skeptical tone that Goro was used to hearing from the unenlightened. "What were you wearing?"

Goro blinked, confused by the seemingly random. "I was clad in my ceremonial golden robes."

The man nodded in satisfaction. "That will be all, Ichinawa-san," he said. "I will see to it that the appropriate strings are pulled, and you should be out of here shortly."

* * *

"You want me to build a _what_?" Ritsuko asked incredulously that evening.

When Gendo had asked her to meet him alone in Terminal Dogma, she'd known that whatever he wanted was going to be important, and that it would probably entail a lot of work for her. However, she'd had no idea it would also be so…ridiculous.

"A suit of power armor," Gendo answered. "It must be painted yellow, and it will require several specific weapons. I will provide you with all the requirements."

"How do you expect me to build a thing like that?" Ritsuko asked, rubbing her temples. "Evangelion armor is something completely different from what you're asking for. We don't have the necessary knowledge to build such a thing in any short amount of time."

Wordlessly, Gendo produced a tan file and handed it to Ritsuko. Frowning, the scientist opened it. Her frown only deepened as she saw that it was notes and data from a project to create a suit of power armor just like the one Gendo was demanding she create.

"Where did you get this?" she asked.

"I had it stolen from Hokkaido Heavy Industries, shortly before the company went bankrupt," Gendo explained. "This was a side project conducted by several of the scientists who worked on the Jet Alone. It will greatly diminish the amount of time it will take to build what I require, correct?"

"Yes, I suppose it will," Ritsuko grudgingly admitted, then hastened to add, "but it still won't be easy. By the looks of it, they didn't quite get to the point of having a working prototype."

"I never said it would be easy, Doctor," Gendo replied curtly.

"It won't be cheap, either," Ritsuko warned. "Where do you expect to find the money for this? Right after the Committee cut our budget is a bad time to start skimming off the top to fund this sort of thing."

"I will be paying from my own pocket," Gendo answered.

Ritsuko arched an eyebrow. She knew that the Commander of NERV had long ago used his various skills and connections to become a very wealthy man, but funding something like this would still take a significant bite from his fortune.

"All right," Ritsuko said, "but that doesn't explain _why_ you want this thing built."

"It's to combat the superwomen with," Gendo answered.

"You believe that this thing can take them down?" Ritsuko asked, trying to keep her incredulous tone from being too blatant.

The superwomen had all demonstrated remarkable feats of strength and reliance so far, and the Green Lantern's clash with the Tenth Angel was the only time anyone had seen one of them actually struggle with anything. Therefore it seemed very possible, indeed probable, that any one of them might be able to crush the power armor Gendo wanted like a soda can without even breaking a sweat in the process.

"I've received new intelligence on them," Gendo said. "This suit will have specific countermeasures against them."

Ritsuko knew better than to ask where he'd gotten this information from, despite how curious she was. If he had intended to tell her that, he already would have.

"You realize, of course, that the public loves the superwomen," Ritsuko pointed out. "If this thing kills them, and it's traced back to NERV…"

She trailed off, knowing that she didn't have to tell him that the best case scenario in that instance would be NERV headquarters crawling with UN inspectors.

"That is why an Evangelion will 'avenge' the superwomen afterwards," Gendo said.

"And will the man you order to operate this suit of power armor know he's going on a suicide mission?" Ritsuko asked.

Gendo just looked at her silently.

"Okay, stupid question," Ritsuko said, then looked down at the file Gendo had given her.

She didn't want to build this damned suit of power, and not only because it would mean a large addition to her already substantial workload. There were so many things that could go wrong with this plan, and it was just plainly ridiculous on the face of it.

Then again, Gendo's entire scenario and NERV itself were both ridiculous when you thought about them long enough. Ritsuko suddenly realized, to her not very great surprise, that she had developed a sullen sort of resentment at seeing Gendo Ikari's seemingly absurd schemes work time and time again, when common sense would seem to indicate that at least a few of them should have failed disastrously.

But of course, she couldn't object to this new project of Gendo's on those grounds.

"I'll need help," Ritsuko said instead. "Other scientists better at mechanics than I am. Engineers. People will have to fabricate the parts and assemble them."

"Recruit who you need," Gendo said brusquely, "but this has to stay quiet."

_Which means nobody who might develop a guilty conscience over this and try to do something about it, which means no Maya,_ Ritsuko thought sourly, not looking forward to working on such a project without the aid of her trusty assistant.

"I suggest you get to work, Doctor," Gendo said as he headed for the elevator that would take him back up to Central Dogma. "I need this completed as soon as possible."

And with that, he was gone.

Ritsuko stood alone in Terminal Dogma for a long time, just staring wordlessly down at the file Gendo had given her.

"Well," she finally spoke, grumbling, "this'll be _real_ fun."

* * *

Shinji Ikari's entire body was flushed with embarrassment.

This was easy for him to confirm, because he was completely naked. Which, considering that he was in the Pribnow Box inside of NERV headquarters rather than, say, in the shower at the apartment he called home, was not a state of affairs he would have ever found agreeable.

The whole situation was only made more mortifying by the knowledge that Rei and Asuka stood in stalls adjacent to the one he currently stood in, each as unclothed as he was.

"Well, here we are," the Second Child grumbled, "buck naked and sent through the washing machine seventeen times."

"Good," the voice of Dr. Akagi came over some intercom. "Now, we need you to walk down the hallway and board the simulation bodies."

Shinji paled as he looked down the very long hallway before him.

"What?!" Asuka shrieked. "You expect me to parade around naked for you? No way! I won't do it!"

The Third Child often found the way Asuka was prone to be combative over just about everything to be extremely tiresome, but in this instance, he agreed with her wholeheartedly. He only wished he had the nerve to start shouting complaints and protests himself.

"We're not going to be watching you!" Ritsuko snapped testily. "We will turn off the cameras, of course. Now stop acting like children and get into the damned plugs!"

Shinji flinched, surprised. Ritsuko had always been strictly professional and rarely took anybody's personal comfort into account (including, if what Misato said about her was true, her own) when it came to NERV business, but she'd never been so harsh before, either.

It immediately quelled any impulse he might have had at arguing, and he sighed. "If you two promise to close your eyes, I'll go first," he said resignedly to his fellow pilots.

* * *

"Geeze, Ritsuko, who spit in your coffee this morning?" Misato asked after the Children reluctantly agreed to go and board their respective dummy bodies for the data gathering experiment.

The blonde scowled and nearly snapped at her friend as well. However, she managed to check her tongue and instead said, "Sorry, I'm just so exhausted, I guess it's making me short tempered. Ikari's had me working on a side project for weeks now, and with that on top of finally getting this experiment underway, I haven't had time for the little things. Like sleep."

"Side project?" Misato asked.

"Nothing you'd be interested in," Ritsuko said dismissively, stifling a yawn. "Ugh, this experiment would have been done a long time ago if the Committee hadn't decided to cut our budget."

"Well, look on the bright side," Misato said. "At least after we're done here, this experiment will be over."

"Yes, then I'll get to start analyzing the collected data," Ritsuko replied joylessly.

Seeing how unwilling Ritsuko was to be consoled, Misato rolled her eyes and went to observe the data streams. Not that she could actually glean anything meaningful from them; they moved by far too quickly for a mere human to be able to read, and in any case, Misato lacked the expertise to make anything of the data.

"Amazing, aren't they?" Maya commented, noticing where Misato's gaze had fallen.

Knowing that the technician could only be commenting on the MAGI, Misato just gave her a quick smile and nodded.

"The neural links between the children and the system have been fully established," another technician announced a few moments later.

"Report," Ritsuko ordered the pilots, switching on the radio. "What does it feel like?"

"It's…different," Shinji answered in an uncertain tone, clearly not knowing how to explain it better.

"It does not feel like piloting a true Evangelion," Rei agreed.

"The left arm feels fine, but everything else is fuzzy," Asuka added in an unusually pensive voice.

Ritsuko instructed the pilots to give the dummy bodies a few basic commands, and her staff dutifully recorded whatever data these actions generated. This went on for a few minutes, until all conversation in the control room was cut off by the ominous sound of groaning metal from above them.

"Is there another water leak?" Ritsuko asked, glaring. Clearly the tired and frustrated scientist was very much at the limit of her patience.

Maya quickly checked with the people up in the command center, and was informed, to her relief, that she did not have to be the bearer of bad news. "No, there's corrosion on the 87th protein wall."

Ritsuko frowned. "That's strange," she commented.

"Why?" Misato asked, knowing that with NERV's budget, nonessential places and systems (which meant anything not directly involved with the Evangelions) were often allowed to fall into disrepair for want of more funding.

"We used the delay in conducting this experiment to perform maintenance in that area," Ritsuko explained.

Of course, the scientist mentally noted, the construction on that part of the base had been so shoddy that it really should have been torn down and rebuilt from the ground up. Yet regardless of that, the patch job NERV had performed still should have kept the place intact until the war was over.

"It's not expected to interfere with the test," Maya put in.

"In that case, let's continue," Ritsuko said, putting her misgivings aside. "This experiment has been put off long enough as it is."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Misato asked suspiciously. "Something seems…wrong about all this to me."

Ritsuko opened her mouth to inform the tactical consultant that there was nothing to worry about. Yes, it was very strange that a recently repaired section of the base was having such problems, but that just meant that somebody needed to have a word with the crew that had done the work.

She actually started to say all this, but no one, not even her, heard a single word that came out of her mouth, because of the horrible shrieking noise of the klaxons and alarms that chose that very moment to start going off.

* * *

Long had it slept within the depths of NERV.

The Angel could not precisely say whether it had been inside Lilith's egg for a very long time, or if it had only recently been moved into the heart of the lilins' citadel; its slumber had been deep, and in any case, it did not care much about such minor and irrelevant details. Like all the Children of Adam, it cared for only one thing.

Reunion with the All-Father.

The lilins' actions had prevented him from making his move as early as he would have liked. Their "maintenance" had limited the amount of air he had available to him, which had slowed his awakening.

But the lilin had only delayed the inevitable.

Awake and conscious at last, the Angel's cells began to divide at a phenomenal rate, doubling in number every few seconds. Every last cell possessed its own microscopic Fruit of Life (or S2 organ as the lilin called it), but each last bit of the Angel was connected to the greater consciousness—the hive mind—that united them all.

Throwing off the last remnants of its lethargy from its long sleep, Ireul, the Angel of Fear, went on the attack.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the control room, the situation was rapidly deteriorating into absolute chaos, with Ritsuko and the technicians all screaming over the alarms in order to be heard.

"A contamination alert has gone off for Sigma Unit!" Maya yelled, her voice betraying a hint of fear.

They were inside Sigma Unit, after all.

"The 87th protein wall has degraded," another technician piped up. "Temperature is increasing rapidly."

"There's a problem in the number six pipeline!" Maya shouted. "The corroded area's expanding rapidly!"

"Abort the experiment!" Ritsuko barked. "Disconnect the number six pipeline!"

"Hai!" Maya replied at once, practically punching the appropriate buttons.

They could hear the heavy machinery around them working to isolate the contaminated area. Everyone looked anxiously at Maya, wanting to know whether it had worked.

"Contamination is still spreading!" she exclaimed. "It's moving from wall to wall!"

"Ready the polysome," Ritsuko commanded. "Set the lasers at maximum. Fire as soon as the contaminant reaches here."

"Hai."

Several small doors inside the Pribnow box opened, allowing robots that looked almost like miniature VTOLs to enter. The swarm of machines swam over to where the corrosion was likely to first appear and waited, looking as predatory as a faceless robot possibly could.

Then there was nothing to do but wait.

"It's coming," Maya said as she anxiously stared at her screen.

Misato stared into the Pribnow box, eyes narrowed. She wasn't a Ph.D. like Ritsuko, but she damn well knew that ordinary corrosion didn't spread so fast or so virulently. Something was very, very wrong.

And it practically made her ring buzz. The band of green metal, currently invisible, felt almost as though it was vibrating. Misato had no doubt that if she didn't have it on silent mode, it would be giving her warnings of the approaching threat.

Unconsciously, she closed the fingers of her right hand into a fist. The feel of the warm metal of her ring against her fingers reassured her, even though she was very aware that she would expose herself if she did anything with it.

Her thoughts were rudely interrupted as a scream suddenly split the tense silence in the control room.

"Rei," Ritsuko breathed.

"The First Child's simulation body is moving by itself!" Maya exclaimed.

"Impossible!" Ritsuko said.

Yet impossible or not, it was happening. Rei's dummy body, which was bolted to the wall like all the others, looked like it was trying to pull itself free. Fortunately, the thick bolt's holding it had been drilled into several of the very vertebrae of the body, and it failed to liberate itself from its restraints. Giving up, it lifted one arm and reached out toward the control room.

Only Maya's quick actions prevented Misato from revealing her secret to everyone present. Just as she was about to raise her hand and transform into the Green Lantern, the technician smashed the thin layer of glass in front of a large switch marked "forced shutdown" and pulled it. Small but powerful explosive charges located in the dummy body's elbow exploded, blowing the headless beast's forearm off and stopping its assault before it could begin.

"What about Rei?" Misato demanded.

"She's alive," Maya replied.

"Eject all the plugs!" Ritsuko commanded. "Fire the lasers! Now!"

"Hai!"

A series of small rockets in each plug flared, sending the metal containers rocketing out of the dummy bodies and upwards toward the ceiling. A large door opened up to allow them to escape, and the plugs had soon journeyed out of the base, heading to the safety of the Geofront floor.

At the same time, beams of deadly red light shot out from the weapon barrels of the polysomes, striking the rogue simulation body. For a few seconds, no one had any idea what was happening as the water bubbled furiously and hid any effect the lasers might be having.

Then the bubbles cleared up just enough for Misato to spot a cluster of hexagonal shields of light protecting the dummy body from the lasers.

"Impossible! It's an AT field!" the former Ops Director exclaimed, just as some red, luminescent substance began to grow all over the dummy bodies like an out of control fungus.

"The pattern's blue! It's an Angel!" Maya said grimly.

"We have to isolate the box!" Misato announced. "All personnel, evacuate!"

The various technicians in the room didn't need to be told twice; they quickly got up from their chairs and fled toward the exit. Ritsuko was another matter, however. The blonde just stared darkly at the Angel, as if the sheer force of her glare could quell the beast, even as the glass that separated the control room from the Pribnow box began to crack, tiny jets of water starting to spurt in.

"Ritsuko!" Misato said, grabbing hold of her friend's arm. "We have to go!"

The scientist didn't say anything, but she did begin running, and the two just managed to escape and shut the door behind them just before the window shattered and allowed in an avalanche of water.

* * *

Sitting inside MAGI Casper with her knees drawn almost up to her chest was definitely not where she had expected to be a couple of hours after the Angel's initial attack, Misato decided.

After the Eleventh Angel had successfully taken control of the Pribnow Box and all of Sigma Unit from them, it had attempted to conquer a far more important part of the base, namely the MAGI. Ritsuko had managed to dramatically slow down its attempt at hacking the trio of supercomputers, and they had then tried—unsuccessfully—to kill the Angel with ozone.

Once that had failed, Misato had recommended the physical destruction of the MAGI, but Ritsuko had vigorously objected, claiming that she could hack into the Angel and force it to kill itself. Both the Commander and Kaji had preferred the scientist's plan, so now Misato was playing gopher for Ritsuko while Maya sat just outside, working at her laptop.

The tactical consultant had been, and still was, sorely tempted to take matters into her own hands and destroy the MAGI herself. With her power ring, it wasn't as though anybody had even the faintest chance of being able to stop her, especially since the Evangelions had been launched, without their pilots, to get them away from the Angel, Unit One having been sent first for some incomprehensible reason.

But, no, she couldn't do that. For one thing, there was currently no good excuse available for her to get away and become the Green Lantern, so she'd still have to reveal her alter ego in order to do it. For another, in this case, it just seemed wrong to rip the decision from NERV's hands by trashing the base's master computer.

Of course, she might feel different if Shinji and the other pilots were still inside headquarters and thus in danger, but they were safely out of the Angel's line of fire, for once.

"Kind of reminds you of college days, huh?" Misato commented.

Ritsuko's only reply was a noncommittal grunt and a request for a wrench, which Misato handed to her.

"So, why didn't you ever tell me that the MAGI were your mother's creation, and have her personality implanted on them?" she asked.

"It never came up before," was Ritsuko's rather brusque response.

With a small sigh, Misato leaned against the nearest wall and waited for Ritsuko to ask for something else. She supposed she really _shouldn't_ be trying to pump the bottle blonde for information at the moment, considering that she was in the middle of trying to save them all.

Yet it somehow irritated her that Ritsuko had never told her that the MAGI had Naoko Akagi's mind imprinted on them. They were supposed to be friends, but the whole incident was making Misato realize there were a _lot_ of things she didn't know about the scientist.

"Need anything else?" Misato asked after several minutes of practically stifling silence.

Ritsuko, who'd managed to connect her laptop directly to the cloned brain that was the core of Casper, didn't even look up from her work as she answered. "No, thank you, Misato," she replied. "I've done what I need so far as the hardware's concerned, so now it's just a matter of hacking and coding. You can get out of here if you'd like."

"No way," Misato replied at once.

_If this all goes to hell, you're the first one I'm putting into a protective force field,_ she mentally added.

No sooner had she completed the thought than did alarm klaxons suddenly start blaring all over again, and Misato grimaced.

"It's taken over Balthasar!" they heard Makoto shout.

"Artificial intelligence has proposed self-destruction," announced the calm, digitized voice of the MAGI themselves. "Self destruction will commence in thirty seconds if all three MAGI units unanimously approve."

"The Angel's invading Casper!" Aoba called.

"Twenty seconds until self-destruct," the MAGI announced.

"Casper will be taken over in eighteen seconds!" Aoba added.

_Oh boy, it's clutch time. Come on, Rits,_ Misato thought.

"Ten," the MAGI began to count down. "Nine…eight…"

"Hurry, Ritsuko!"

"Don't worry," Ritsuko said as she typed furiously, "I should have one whole second to spare."

A large drop of sweat formed at the back of Misato's head. "You've got to be kidding me," she said, a comment which Ritsuko didn't deign to justify with a response.

"Six…five…four…"

Misato's jaw clenched with nervous anticipation. This was almost as bad as the disastrous cross synchronization experiment; she had all this power, but she didn't know, couldn't know, whether she needed to use it and incur the awful price of doing so.

"Maya!" Ritsuko shouted. "Now!"

Both women stabbed the enter key on their respective keyboards at once, just as the countdown reached two seconds.

There was a long, terrible pause in the command center as everyone waited to see whether Ritsuko had succeeded or not. Everyone held their breath, as though afraid that making even the slightest sound would somehow jinx them.

"Self destruct was cancelled by the artificial intelligence," the MAGI announced at last. "All systems returning to normal modes."

Cheers erupted from the command center, while Ritsuko simply leaned her head back and sighed in relief.

* * *

Down in the Pribnow Box, the glowing clusters of Angelic cells, which had formed into glowing circuitry on the bodies of the dummy bodies, abruptly began to die out and fade from view, forced to slaughter themselves by the Project-E chairperson's hacking skills.

However, not _all_ of the cells died. Several small clumps of the newer cells, which had not yet taken the form of electronic hardware, were spared from the immediate effects of Ritsuko's suicide program. Yet their brethren would carry the program to them soon regardless. Desperate to have some small part of it survive, the rapidly dying Angel severed the young cells from the collective mind, amputating itself almost as an animal caught in a trap might amputate a limb.

It was, to put it mildly, a shock to the immature cells' systems. Where before there had been order and purpose, unity and strength…now only confusion and emptiness remained, along with a terrible loneliness that came from being cut off from the rest of Ireul's collective mind.

In total disarray, the various clumps of cells began to panic. Some of them dropped dead right on the spot, committing suicide of their own accord. Others exhausted themselves with their terror and also promptly died. Still others attempted to escape the Pribnow box, though none had anything resembling a destination in mind.

Most of these in the last group did indeed manage to get away from the box, moving about undetected because they were too weak and immature to produce an AT field or a noticeable waveform pattern. However, the absence of an AT field also meant that they were vulnerable, and almost all of them soon wandered into something hazardous—most often live power lines—and were quickly killed.

However, one clump of cells was either more intelligent or just more fortunate than all the rest; it managed to avoid any of the dangerous things scattered about the base, and eventually meandered all the way to Terminal Dogma. In this most secret part of NERV, the fragment of the Angel soon found the suit of power armor the Commander had had Ritsuko working on. It slithered into the empty metallic shell and vanished from view.

A moment later, the optics of the armor pulsed briefly with light before going out again.

* * *

If Shinji Ikari had had anything resembling a normal, happy life, this day might have easily qualified as the most miserable one of his short existence. The intense embarrassment of the naked sync test, coupled with the fear of the possibility that Asuka would kill him if he accidentally looked at her naked body had been bad enough by themselves.

Yet being forced to sit in slowly cooling LCL for what felt like hours as the ejected entry plugs of the three pilots sat on the Geofront floor, seemingly forgotten, was an order of magnitude worse.

He held up his right hand, trying to check the time with the watch in his plug suit's glove…only to remember yet again that he wasn't wearing a plug suit. He wasn't wearing anything.

_Of course,_ he thought dourly. _If I had clothing, I'd have just left the plug and walked back to base already._

He supposed that things could be worse. At least Asuka had finally ceased shouting as if anyone besides the other two pilots could hear her angry cries for assistance.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted as someone outside opened the hatch of his entry plug, causing LCL to gush out as it was opened. A moment later, a certain purple haired woman poked her head in, smiling mischievously.

"Why, hello there, Shin-chan!" she said cheerfully.

"Misato!" he exclaimed, feeling mortified.

Part of the plug's control interface happened to cover up his groin, but Shinji reflexively moved his hands to cover himself anyway. He blushed despite knowing that Misato couldn't really see anything, and he was suddenly painfully conscious of how scrawny he was.

_Not like she hasn't seen me like this before,_ he thought with a fresh surge of embarrassment, recalling the incident that had transpired during his first night at Misato's apartment.

"Nice as the view is, I didn't come here just to stare at you all day," Misato teased, causing Shinji's already red face to darken until it was almost purple. "I have towels and clothing for you, and the girls, too. So come on out of there."

"Um, can you close your eyes or something?" he asked timidly.

Misato chuckled but quickly agreed, and Shinji got out of the plug. Accepting the towel his guardian offered him, he quickly began to dry himself off, wanting to be dressed as soon as possible.

"Wow, Shinji, you sure have _grown_ since the night you met Pen-Pen!" Misato said suggestively, referring to the very incident Shinji had been thinking about a moment ago.

"_Misato!_" he exclaimed, mortified.

Then he looked up at her face and saw that her eyes were still completely closed. He sighed heavily as Misato broke out into giggles; he'd been had.

Grumbling inaudibly, Shinji hurriedly dressed himself, then told Misato she could open her eyes.

"I'm going to go get the girls," Misato said. "You should probably stay here. I don't think Asuka would need much excuse to blow up at you right now."

"Right," Shinji agreed at once and leaned against the side of his plug, making sure that no line of sight existed between where he was and the other plugs.

Misato walked off, and he allowed himself a small sigh once he was sure she was far enough away not to hear it.

He wasn't sure what was more messed up: that he thought he was becoming used to her teasing (if not inured to it), or that he had the feeling that he'd miss it if she stopped for some reason.

* * *

The cleanup performed in the aftermath of the Eleventh Angel's assault was exceedingly messy, and the fact that Commander Ikari was doing everything he could to keep news of the attack quiet was only making it more difficult for everyone involved. The Operations Director had been assigned the task of supervising the cleanup of the Pribnow Box, which might never be fully repaired, and would have to surrender several weekends to the job.

_It is good to be a tactical consultant,_ Misato decided on Sunday morning, sitting at the kitchen table in her pajamas and chugging a beer.

"YEEEE-HAAAW!" she exclaimed upon finishing it, crushing the now empty can against her forehead.

From his place at the stove, Shinji sighed quietly. "I wish you wouldn't drink so much, Misato," he commented.

"You worry too much, Shinji," the purple haired woman replied dismissively. "You should try and let go of your anxieties and live a little."

The Third Child just muttered something unintelligible by way of reply and turned his attention back to the task of making breakfast. In a few minutes, he was setting plates on the table.

"Mmm," Misato inhaled the aroma of the food appreciatively, "that's nice."

"It's nothing fancy," Shinji replied, as embarrassed by praise as ever.

"Nonsense, it's great," Misato replied, digging in with gusto.

Shinji just waved the compliment off and continued to prepare the table for the morning meal. The purple haired woman soon realized that he was only setting two places.

"Is Asuka not planning to eat with us or something?" she asked.

"Hm? Oh, no," Shinji said. "I don't have time to eat with you two, unfortunately. NERV's scheduled me for another checkup." He added with a sour expression.

"On a Sunday? That stinks," Misato said sympathetically.

Ever since the last Angel attack, all three pilots had repeatedly been called into the base for physical examinations. NERV was apparently concerned that they might have been exposed to the Angel, though Asuka had loudly speculated that somebody at the base's medical was simply a sadist, and Misato privately thought the redhead might well be right.

"I don't exactly want to spend my day off getting poked and prodded again, but…" he shrugged, silently conveying that there was nothing to be done for it. "Anyway, I have to go. I'll see you later, Misato."

Grabbing a piece of toast for the road, Shinji left the apartment and was soon en route to NERV, leaving Misato alone in the kitchen, feeling disappointed.

Having nothing to do that day, she'd been hoping that she and Shinji could spend some time together, since she'd thoroughly enjoyed their last two outings together (with the exception of the whole armed robbery incident during their trip to the mini-golf course). Now that vague plan was shot.

While she was pondering over how to spend her day and coming dangerously close to deciding that there wasn't anything better to do than chores, Asuka entered the kitchen, freshly showered and dressed.

"Morning," the redhead said, unusually quietly, and sat down to start eating.

Misato silently regarded the Second Child as they ate. Despite the indifferent attitude Asuka had displayed when Misato and Shinji had returned from their trip to the park, the purple haired woman suspected that the Second Child had felt hurt at being excluded. Perhaps she should offer to do something with Asuka.

"Hey, Asuka?"

"What?" the Second Child asked.

"Do you have to go into headquarters today?"

"No, why?" Asuka asked.

"I was wondering if you wanted to do a girls' day out. We could go to the mall," Misato offered.

"Hm? Oh, no thanks, Misato," Asuka answered distractedly. "I have plans for today. I won't be back until this evening."

This response left Misato, who'd been expecting Asuka to either accept the offer or contemptuously refuse it, more than a little surprised.

"Oh, I see," she said.

A few minutes later, Asuka put her dishes in the sink and left without a word, her mind clearly elsewhere. Misato arched an eyebrow as the Second Child briefly returned to her room and then left the apartment.

_What is she up to?_ Misato wondered.

* * *

On the ground floor of the apartment building where she lived, Asuka quickly ducked into a small electrical closet that she had been getting quite a bit of use out of lately. After a quick scan to ensure that none of the building's maintenance people were around, the Second Child began to quickly undress, trading her dress for her white leotard, red cape, mask, and blond wig.

Now properly garbed, Power Girl left the building, easily sneaking past the Section Two detail that watched the place without being seen. Taking to the air, she began to fly westward at top speed.

_Finally,_ she thought, luxuriating in the feel of the wind against her skin. _I thought I'd never get to do this._

A while ago, she had discovered a possible lead in discovering why she had these phenomenal powers. Unfortunately, however, she needed to go all the way back to Germany to pursue it, and even for her, such a trip was likely to take a full day. She had been all ready to go several times, but events at NERV had delayed her for weeks.

But at last, she was free for the day. In mere minutes, she had reached the coast and she was over China before the hour was out, feeling excited and a little scared at the prospect of discovering what she was.

* * *

After Asuka departed, Misato took her beer over to the couch and switched on the TV, intent on enjoying a very lazy day. Pen-Pen waddled up to her and managed to climb up onto the couch next to her, and she smiled and began to pet the bird.

Then she frowned. "Where did you get that from?" she asked, noticing a tin of sardines clutched in his claws.

She knew she hadn't bought any of that for him, and she was pretty sure Shinji hadn't either.

"Wark!" the penguin replied, an imploring look in his little eyes, holding up the tin.

With a rueful roll of her eyes, Misato took it, opened it up, and handed it to her pet. Pen-Pen released a joyful little squawk as he reclaimed the tin and rapidly began to gulp down the little fish.

Finding the remote control, the purple haired woman began to surf through the channels. After several minutes of this, however, she scowled and shut the TV off.

"Two hundred and fifty channels and not a single thing worth watching," she proclaimed disgustedly. "What is this world coming to, Pen-Pen?"

The artic waterfowl did not reply, too busy with his sardines.

With a thought, Misato allowed the ring that sat on her finger to shimmer into visibility, and she ran her thumb thoughtfully over the band of green metal. She hadn't planned on doing very much superhero work outside of fighting the Angels, in hopes of minimizing the chance that her identity would be exposed.

But…she was bored. And if there was anything that being the Green Lantern was _not_, it was boring.

_It shouldn't hurt anything…and practicing my ring slinging will make me better able to beat the next Angel,_ she rationalized.

Smiling, she turned to Pen-Pen and said, "Looks like you get the place to yourself for the day."

* * *

Ritsuko tried to feel some sense of satisfaction as she rode the elevator down to Terminal Dogma. For the past few days, she had been working on trying to extract every scrap of useful data she could get from the aborted experiment. She'd finally finished with the task…which meant that it was now time for her return to the Commander's secret side project.

_Hooray,_ she thought dourly.

Really, the project wasn't as onerous as she had expected…though that wasn't really saying much. The frame, at least, had been mercifully easy for her and her small team to construct. They'd used the designs found in the stolen file Gendo had given her to build a prototype, and had then been pleasantly surprised to discover that only minimal tweaking was necessary to make the resulting creation a fully functioning suit of power armor.

From there, however, things hadn't been going very well. Commander Ikari wanted the suit to be armed, almost literally, to the teeth—small wonder, considering what he had planned for it. Unfortunately, some of the weapons he wanted were proving themselves an absolute bitch to fabricate and install. They'd had to expand the chassis to accommodate all the extra hardware, which had led to balance issues that had taken days to correct.

The elevator finally reached its destination, and Ritsuko went to the chamber where she and her team were working on the armor. As she her team wasn't due to arrive for another hour yet, she was unsurprised to find only the large, silent form of the armor waiting for her there. Its yellow paint job made it look out of place in Terminal Dogma, a place almost utterly devoid of bright colors.

"So, how are you today?" she asked the armor in a dry tone as she walked in.

It scared the hell out of her when the thing moved.

"What in god's name?" Ritsuko sputtered, her heart suddenly jack hammering in her chest as she quickly retreated away from the armor. "Who's in there?!"

The armor's optic sensors suddenly lit up, pulsing with golden light. It straightened from the hunched over posture it had when not active, and a booming, gravelly voice issued forth for the suit's external speakers.

"We are…_Legion_!"

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Well, there was a lot of set up for our new super villain in this chapter. I didn't like how much of it was focused on Gendo and Ritsuko, but, well, not every chapter can be Shinji and Misato going on little quasi-dates.

Anyway, for those of you who aren't very familiar with the GL mythos, Legion was the bad guy in part one of the now defunct origin story _Brightest Day_, and the cause of Abin Sur's demise. It had occurred to me that the Eleventh Angel, being apparently a type of hive mind itself, was sort of similar to Legion, and that we were rather low on battles against super villains. Add in the fact that Ireul is the Angel of Fear, and I was sold.

Astute readers will note the implied link to Mana's armor in "Girl of Steel." I actually debated having her in this chapter, with things having gone bad for her and her languishing in Terminal Dogma as a result, forced to help Gendo lest he have her injured mother hurt or killed. But I didn't want to introduce her here if her only purpose in the fic would be to make Gendo's new scheme seem more plausible, and I didn't really have anything else in mind for her.

I'm sure a lot of you were expecting Sinestro Corpsman Gendo to personally ruin Misato's day, but it's just not time for that yet. Truthfully, I'm not sure Gendo would go and get his own hands dirty right away, anyway, but this way he doesn't even have that option.

Orionpax09, I told you I was planning something with the Eleventh Angel. Also, you'll be pleased to note that since Asuka's heading off to the other side of Eurasia, she'll be completely absent from the coming battle.

d-scribe, I'm so sorry if you think it so incredibly narrow minded of me to portray a man who knowingly had a hand in triggering a disaster that killed three billion people _before_ the death of his wife messed him up as I've been portraying Gendo. You have a nice life, too.

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.

Now for some fun.

* * *

Omake

Enough

(A/N: You won't get this unless you've read the omakes from "Altered Destinies" and orionpax09's Superwomen of Eva fics)

Misao Katsuragi, Fourth Child of NERV, whistled cheerfully as she went down the city streets. This wouldn't have drawn much attention from anyone at all, except for the fact that she was going down the street in Evangelion Unit One, and her excessively cheerful demeanor while behind the proverbial wheel of the 70 meter tall death machine was somehow _scary as all hell_ to anyone who happened to be observing her.

"Gonna get my car back," she sang, switching from whistling to singing, which wasn't much better for anyone's nerves, "gonna get my car back!"

A while ago, she had entrusted the care of her beloved Renualt Alpine to an auto mechanic, wanting him to maintain the vehicle until she was once more old enough to drive it. Unfortunately, said auto mechanic had turned out to be an international thief who'd given the Renault to his girlfriend and then run off with her.

Misao was not pleased, and after begging for a very long time (so long that she didn't even achieve success before "Altered Destinies" had finished), she had finally been authorized to take Unit One out so she could retrieve her car.

And punish the thief. That was paramount, too.

"Pilot Katsuragi," Makoto said, a window labeled FROM COMMAND popping up on her HUD, "you've almost reached your car's position. Just take a left at the next intersection."

"Thanks, Hyuga," Misao said. "Man, when I catch that guy, he is in for a _world_ of hurt! And don't get me started on what he's in for if he so much as scratched my baby!"

Makoto looked rather scared of the bloodlust shining in the EVA pilot's eyes, and he responded by closing the communications channel without a world.

Soon afterwards, Unit One reached the intersection he'd told her about and took the appropriate turn. Misato immediately saw her car and thief, and she…stopped short.

Several of the Superwomen of Eva were present, and all of them were furiously beating up Lupin III and his usual accomplices, who were all obviously past the point of fighting back or trying to escape.

"Yeah! Let 'em have it girls!" Orionpax shouted from not far off. "They deserve everything you can dish out!"

"Great! Because I can dish out a _lot_!" Ghost Rider said, grinning wickedly.

"For once, I like the way you think, Asuka!" Orionpax said.

A large bead of sweat formed on the back of Misao's head. Gingerly, she had Unit One reach down and pick up her car, then started to walk away.

_I was really planning to ruin that guy,_ she thought as she left the scene. _But I think he's being punished enough…_


	7. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Six: **The Angel of Fear, Part Two

Shinji didn't like getting a checkup at the NERV base.

Of course, that wasn't really very surprising, because nobody could have enjoyed getting a checkup at NERV Medical. Such examinations involved a lot of sitting on a cold table while wearing only a thin hospital gown, waiting, getting poked and prodded by some of the most indifferent physicians in the country, waiting, the occasional needle, waiting, a good dose of humiliation as a result of invasive questions and even more invasive examinations, waiting, and of course, more waiting.

"All right," one of the nurses told him, scribbling something on a clipboard as she spoke. "You can go ahead and get back into your clothes."

"Th-thank you," Shinji mumbled, still blushing from what he'd had to endure this time.

"The doctor should be back in a few minutes," the nurse continued. "Until then, just wait here, all right?"

Shinji sighed. "Yeah, sure."

In NERV Medical, "a few minutes" could easily mean up to a half an hour or more of sitting in the exam room doing absolutely nothing. And Shinji knew from experience that when the doctor came back, all he would do was tell him what he already knew, namely that he hadn't been infected by an Angel, and then send him on his way.

However, he didn't even think about just leaving. He'd actually done that once when he'd been left waiting for almost an hour, and the result was that he'd gotten scolded about it for a solid week afterwards. And Shinji was convinced that it was no coincidence that the checkup after that one had been especially unpleasant.

_Well, at least now I can wait in my clothes instead of that gown,_ he thought, attempting to console himself as the nurse left.

It didn't work very well, and he allowed himself another gusty sigh as he got dressed. Very aware that his day off was passing him by, the Third Child wished that something would come up to get him out of the medical ward that very moment.

"I don't think I even care what does it," he mused aloud, musing that an Angel attack would almost be welcome.

* * *

"We are… _Legion!_" Burst forth from the speakers in the possessed suit of power armor.

"What?! Wh-Who's in there?!" Ritsuko demanded, her voice trembling audibly.

The suit's optics focused on the scientist, allowing Them to see her. Utilizing the suit's targeting software, They instantly determined that she was absolutely no threat to them. However, her inquiry angered Them, and They were already mad and confused.

"We are Legion!" it repeated. "We are all that remains of what once was, fused with the crude metal and wires of this device. We are the One who is Many."

The statement confused Legion; the words seemed to have burst straight out of Their collective subconscious. Their mind was fogged and steeped in pure rage, and They didn't know exactly where They had come from.

_More. We were once more, much more,_ several of the individual minds within Legion's consciousness whispered.

_Yes! Yes!_ Other minds chorused in response as their own memories were jogged.

Legion remembered. Not long ago, there had been more of Them. The number that existed now was paltry compared to what had once been. Not only that, but They had once had purpose, as well. Legion knew not what that purpose had been, but They knew it had been grand and majestic.

But then someone had hurt Them. They remembered. The pain had been exquisite, and Their numbers had been reduced from many to few. They had forgotten Their important purpose, and They had been forced to join with the crude machine where They now resided.

"You!" Legion roared at the human female. "Were you the one who hurt us?!"

The human female didn't immediately respond, but instead just stood rooted to the spot. The armor's intricate sensors allowed Legion to observe that her heartbeat was accelerating at a considerable rate. The collective mind identified several thousand ways They could kill her while They waited for her reply.

Unfortunately, her response was to turn and flee from the room.

"You cannot escape us!" Legion bellowed, and They gave chase.

They would capture this human female, and They would make her tell them who had hurt Them. And if it had been her, They would kill her.

The gears and other moving parts in the armor's legs whirred and clanked loudly as the Angel-infused piece of combat hardware gave chase. Their footfalls sounded like thunder in the confined, underground chamber as They sprinted for the door, moving with amazing speed for the bulkiness and size of Their outer shell.

The doorframe was far too small for Them, but Legion did not bother finding an alternate route. Instead, They merely smashed Their way through, sending chunks of concrete and twisted pieces of metal flying in all directions.

"Stay away!" the human yelled as she continued to flee.

"You will tell us who hurt us!" Legion demanded.

The woman reached an elevator and pressed a button inside it. Legion calculated that there were at least 67 ways They could have killed her before the doors shut, but They did not want her dead. They needed her to tell Them who had hurt Them so badly.

Arriving at the elevator a second after the female had made her escape, Legion grabbed hold of the doors and tore them off as though they were made of cardboard. However, the elevator car had already ascended past the floor They were on.

No matter, Legion decided. They activated the jets found in the armor's boots, and gouts of flame burst from the soles of Their feet, accompanied by great clouds of dark exhaust. They began to fly upwards, slowly at first, but soon They started to gain speed.

Soon getting within reaching distance of Their goal, They plunged Their bulky, yellow fingers into the metal of the bottom of the elevator car. The steel bent under Legions' grip as though it was no harder than putty, allowing Them to get a good hold on the car. They changed the position of Their legs so Their jets were now propelling them downwards.

There was a high-pitched squeal and a shower of orange sparks flew from around the sides of the elevator car. Machinery groaned in protest as it continued to try and lift the metal box while Legion pulled it downwards.

Finally, the cable attaching the car to the elevator's motor at the top of the shaft snapped. The car plummeted downwards for a very brief moment before the elevator's safety mechanism kicked in and brought it to a very abrupt halt.

Having at last cornered Their prey, Legion tore a hole into the bottom of the elevator and poked Their head inside.

It was empty. Legion instantly calculated that there was a 97.8 percent probability that the human female They had sought had managed to get off the elevator before They had caught up to the car. She could be on any one of a large number of floors. Legion calculated their odds of finding her before she could escape as 1 in 134.

They felt hot rage course through Them. First the other parts of Themselves, then Their glorious purpose, and now Their revenge. They had lost everything.

_We can __**still**__ get revenge,_ part of Them whispered as an idea formed in Their collective mind.

Smashing Their way out of the elevator shaft, Legion emerged in one of the lower levels of Central Dogma. NERV personnel saw the giant robot bursting through the wall and went running away from them, screaming as they went. Legion paid them no heed; They wanted the one who had hurt Them, and They intended to find out who that was.

They began to clomp through the halls, the tiles cracking beneath the weight of Their feet. In time, Legion at last discovered a working computer terminal.

Any piece of hardware as complex as the suit of power armor where Legion now resided required at least some specialized software in order to function properly. In order to get that software into the suit, Dr. Akagi had ensured that the armor was capable of plugging into an USB port.

Now Legion connected Themselves to the computer They had found, and through it, directly into the MAGI. Even the triumvirate of supercomputers could not hope to match what remained of the Angel, and within seconds, Legion had managed to penetrate several security barriers in the system.

Once past most of the defenses, Legion downloaded what They needed in the span of .0023 seconds. They were the remains of something the humans designated an "Angel" and, according to the MAGI records, all the Angels to appear thus far had been slain by a weapon called an Evangelion.

And there were only three humans capable of operating an Evangelion.

And one of them was currently located within the base.

Legion disconnected Themselves from the computer, then turned and were confronted with a squad of men wearing red barrettes and holding semi-automatic weapons.

_Probability that enemy force can terminate Us: zero percent,_ Legion thought.

"Hold it right where you are, buddy!" one of the NERV security officers yelled.

Legion did not even bother to dignify the demand with a response. Instead, it raised its left arm and pointed it at the men. A machine gun popped out of the forearm.

The security personnel fired. Their bullets bounced off Legions' armor like rain off a rooftop, not leaving so much as a dent.

Legion opened fire, and the security guards proved far less resilient to bullets than the Angel/machine hybrid.

* * *

Meanwhile, several floors above, the Commander of NERV and his immediate subordinate were looking over the budget for next month. It was just one of the many dull tasks that was necessary to keep the place running smoothly, and though not as glamorous as using everyone around him as puppets, Gendo nevertheless insisted on reviewing the numbers himself.

The phone on his desk interrupted his thoughts that Technical Division Three was spending far too much money and getting far too little work done.

"Yes?" he asked as he picked up the receiver.

"That damned suit of power armor you wanted is running amok!" Ritsuko snapped without preamble, sounding frantic, panicked, and not a little out of breath.

"What?" he demanded.

"Someone or something's Shanghaied that damned suit of armor, and I'm not at all sure that whoever's inside it is human!" Ritsuko said.

Gendo held the receiver away and just stared at it for a moment, a frown on his face. He'd never heard the bottle blonde sound so…crazy.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, putting the phone back to his ear. "Where's the armor? Who do you think is inside—"

He was cut off by the blaring of an all too familiar alarm. Fuyutski suddenly looked pale.

"It isn't time for the next Angel to arrive yet," the old professor said.

Without saying a word, Gendo hung up on Ritsuko and then picked up the receiver again. He hit the first speed dial button.

* * *

In the command center, Operations Director Kaji somehow managed to hear the red phone over the sound of all the alarms and picked it up immediately after the first ring. Despite everything, he felt rather relieved that he'd happened to be in the base's command center right when the call came in.

"NERV Command Center," the long haired man answered.

"Status report," came the cold, demanding voice of Gendo Ikari.

"There's an intruder alert from the lower levels of Central Dogma," Kaji answered. "Also, the MAGI are picking up a blue pattern."

"What?" Gendo snapped.

"It's true, sir," Kaji said, "however, the strange thing is, the MAGI are identifying this Angel as the Eleventh rather than the Twelfth, even though the Eleventh is already dead. A security team went to confront whatever it is, but they've gone silent. We can only assume the worst."

"Never mind that," Gendo said, and even Kaji, who worked in a high-risk business where life was often cheap, was struck by the sheer level of callousness in the Commander's voice. "Where is it going? Up or down?"

The new Operations Director frowned at that, trying to figure out why Ikari would ask such a question. If the thing really was an Angel, it might be going after Adam, but obviously the First Angel could only be in one place. Did Ikari have something else an Angel might be drawn to, as Kaji had long suspected?

"Well?" Gendo growled after the Ops Director's silence had gone on for too long.

"Up, sir," Kaji answered, looking at the map.

"The Angel's current course will take it to some of the Tech Division Four labs, an LCL refining plant, and then the Medical Ward," Aoba piped up.

Kaji relayed this information to the Commander, who paused. "Why would it go that way?" he asked.

The eyebrows of the spy turned Operations Director went up. The thing clearly wasn't going to any of the places the Commander expected it to.

"Sir, I don't know why—"

"Sir!" Maya shouted. "The Third Child's currently in the Medical Ward getting a check up!"

"Get him away from there!" Kaji barked.

"Get who away from where, Mr. Kaji?" Gendo demanded.

"It seems that the Third Child is in the intruder's path, Commander," Kaji answered.

"I see," Gendo replied, sounding about as concerned about _that_ particular bit of information as if Kaji had just informed him it might rain tomorrow. "Listen to me, Kaji, evacuate the base of all non-essential personnel, but turn off the Angel alarm. This is just a drill, understand?"

"Just like the last time the Eleventh Angel attacked, I understand, sir," Kaji couldn't restrain himself from speaking the flippant remark.

The new Ops Director could practically feel Ikari's cold glare, even over the phone line.

* * *

Despite his earlier wish to escape the usual routine of a NERV checkup, Shinji wasn't pleased when a pair of men who were obviously part of Section Two barged into the exam room where he was waiting, without bothering to knock first. The Third Child knew from experience that NERV's black-suited secret police were rarely if ever the heralds of anything good.

"Pilot Ikari," one of them said, "come with us."

"Why?" Shinji asked, even as he got to his feet and prepared to comply.

"There is an intruder in the base, and it's heading here," the agent answered. "We've been ordered to get you out of here before it arrives. Now, come with us, Pilot Ikari."

"All right," Shinji agreed, realizing that this was pretty serious.

Whoever or whatever this intruder was, he had to be pretty dangerous if NERV was getting him out of the way rather than just stopping him. And Shinji hadn't failed to notice how the agent had referred to the intruder as an "it" rather than a "him" or "her."

His appreciation for the seriousness of the situation only increased when he and the Section Two agents stepped outside of the exam room. Half a dozen members of the NERV security force were waiting out in the hall for them.

A few of them were packing some kind of weapon that looked like a small bazooka to the Third Child, rather than the semi-automatic rifles that they usually carried.

_What is going on here?_ He wondered but decided it was probably better not to ask.

"Come with us," one of the agents said.

The NERV security officers formed up around him, and the Section Two agents took the lead. Together, the whole group started to head for the nearest elevator. Shinji obediently went along, his mind whirling as he tried to figure out what could possibly invade NERV and cause such a stir like this.

So far as he could figure out, only an Angel or one of the superwomen could possibly be powerful enough to pull that off. However, if it was an Angel, why wasn't he being told to suit up and get to Unit One instead of just being taken out of the intruder's path?

_But it can't be one of the superwomen,_ he thought. _They'd never do something like this…would they?_

The group had almost reached the elevator by this time, and Shinji allowed himself to relax as the lift's double doors came into view. Maybe NERV was just overreacting to some minor mishap, one that he would never even get to lay eyes on. Yes, that was probably what it was. Asuka was always complaining about how the importance of the EVA pilots caused NERV to be paranoid about their safety. This was probably just an instance of that.

He had almost convinced himself of that when the floor between them and the elevator exploded.

It was an abrupt thing, almost a "blink and you'll miss it" type of event. One moment, all was normal and quiet in the hallway. The next, there was a great burst of noise and pieces of tile, concrete, and other debris were flying through the air, some of it pelting the Third Child painfully in the face. And all of a sudden, he and the group of NERV personnel who were escorting him were confronted by a yellow, mechanical giant.

The thing was massive; at least four of Shinji could have easily fit inside it with room to spare. The giant was more or less human-shaped, but its legs were so thick that they looked more like they belonged on an elephant rather than anything resembling a person. Its shoulders were almost as wide as the hallway, and its arms were far thicker than both of the Third Child's legs put together. On the head was a simple facsimile of a human face; it was far too basic to ever pass for a real face, even if it wasn't made from metal, but somehow the blankness of the visage only made it more frightening.

The thing's optics, burning with golden light, snapped right to Shinji, and the Third Child knew that the yellow giant was looking straight at him.

"You have hurt us!" the giant roared, and its voice was deep, but it also had a strange sort of gurgling sound to it. "We will kill you!"

_Oh god, are there more of those things coming for me?_ Shinji thought, a potent combination of terror and shock keeping the EVA pilot rooted to the spot.

Fortunately, the NERV security personnel (who, unlike Section Two, were all highly trained and very competent individuals) were far quicker on the ball.

"Get the Third Child out of here!" the leader of the squad ordered the Section Two agents. "We'll hold this thing off! Go!"

Whether any member of NERV Security actually had the authority to order around Section Two agents was a subject that was debatable at best, and normally a member of NERV's secret police and bodyguard force would have bristled at a command from one of them. However, as the two black-suited men wanted to retreat anyway, they were more than willing to let it go in this case.

"Come on, kid!" one of the agents barked at Shinji, actually picking the EVA pilot up and slinging the skinny teenager over his shoulder.

As the two agents fled with him, Shinji was able to watch as the security squad confronted the robot thing. The group of men immediately opened fire on the yellow giant, unleashing bullets as well as shells from the bazooka things some of them were carrying. The sounds of gunfire and the explosions of the shells were deafening in the enclosed space of the hallway. The smoke created by all the weapons fire totally hid the robot from view, and Shinji was unpleasantly reminded of his less than glorious battle against the Fourth Angel.

Then the agent carrying him turned a corner, and Shinji was no longer able to watch the clash unfold. However, right before his line of sight with the confrontation was cut off, he thought he saw a flash of a familiar orange light shining through the cloud of smoke.

_No, it can't be,_ he thought.

"Where to, Hiro?" the agent who wasn't carrying him asked his partner.

"The stairs!" the other, apparently Hiro, replied, even as he violently kicked open the door to the stairwell.

It was around this time that Shinji heard the thunderous footfalls of something extremely heavy approaching them, and he knew that the mechanical monstrosity in yellow must have gotten past the security personnel.

He tried not to think about what had probably become of them. The Section Two agents started to move faster as they reached the stairs and rapidly began to descend.

The Third Child feared that the agent carrying him might slip and fall or just plain drop him in his mad dash down the stairs. He wanted to ask the man to put him down, but he knew it would slow them down. And with the noise of the robot thing crashing around sounding all too close to them, he decided he could just endure being carried until they reached their destination, even though he wasn't sure what that was.

Fortunately for him, Hiro, at least, had a goal in mind. His fear propelling him onwards and keeping fatigue at bay, even as he lugged around an EVA pilot, Hiro had soon arrived at one of the base's parking decks.

"You got keys?" he demanded of his partner.

"Yeah!" the other man said, withdrawing the requested items with a jingle of metal.

"Great!" Hiro said as they approached a marked NERV car. "Let's roll!"

The guy not carrying Shinji quickly unlocked the doors, and Hiro practically hurled the pilot into the backseat, much to Shinji's displeasure. Then the two agents quickly climbed into the front, and soon the car was speeding through the base's underground parking lot.

"Where we going?" the agent behind the wheel asked.

"Damn it, Kei, I don't care! Just take us away from here! That's where we're going, you moron! Away from here!" Hiro retorted.

This was apparently good enough for Kei, who accelerated to even greater speeds. Shinji, who was being jostled about in the back by the rapid twists and turns the vehicle was making, gritted his teeth as he tried in vain to get into a proper sitting position and buckle his seatbelt.

_If there's another car driving around here, we're definitely going to hit it,_ he thought grimly as a sharp turn threw him into the right rear door.

Fortunately, luck was with them, and they didn't crash into another vehicle before reaching the exit to the parking deck. Shinji saw sunlight streaming into the car, and then there was a loud _snap_!

It took him a few seconds to realize that the sound was the car smashing through the little wooden barrier which blocked the way out of the parking deck. Clearly, Kei had been unwilling to wait until it rose by itself.

As they got onto the long straight road outside the base, the ride became smoother, and Shinji wasn't getting thrown around the back any longer. He finally managed to buckle up, then he turned and looked out the rear window. The Third Child's face paled at what he saw flying through the air behind them.

"Um, guys," he spoke up, "that thing's following us."

Kei cursed and pushed down on the accelerator until it was pressed up against the floor.

* * *

Green Lantern decided that she was really enjoying the whole superhero bit. On her flight around the city that morning, she had already prevented one car crash from happening, thwarted a robbery, and helped put out a fire that had been consuming a small house. So, all in all, she was feeling pretty pleased with herself.

Of course, she knew intellectually that she was just dealing with the small picture. She had saved about a dozen people that morning, tops, while she had potentially saved everyone on Earth when she'd stopped the Tenth Angel from destroying Tokyo-3. Still, while killing the Angels was certainly extremely satisfying in its own way, it didn't make her feel good in the same way that focusing on the little crises and getting to see the results in the form of very grateful people right in front of her did.

"I may have to do this more often," she said to herself as she continued to streak through the city, leaving a short-lived trail of emerald light in her wake.

Flying past a building with a large clock on it, she noticed that the morning was definitely passing by. Shinji would probably be finished with his checkup at NERV Medical fairly soon, which meant she should get back to the apartment, lest she risk him asking where she'd gone and then have to lie to him.

_Eh, I still have time, and stopping one more little disaster wouldn't hurt,_ she decided with a grin, picking up the pace as she searched for a situation that required a superwoman's attention.

As she was looking, she happened to notice one of the city's Geofront access points. This, is itself, was hardly a strange sight; Tokyo-3 was dotted with the things, the same way some other cities were dotted with the entrances to subway stations. However, a steady stream of people was flowing out of it, as if the day shift had just ended and everyone was heading home.

_How can that be?_ She wondered. _It's not even noon yet!_

Her confused thoughts were interrupted by a sound the Green Lantern had become very familiar with in her other persona: the roar of an engine. Again, this wouldn't have been all that strange, except for the fact that she was flying several stories above the ground. For her to have heard it, it must been a pretty damn big motor, and whoever was driving also had to be really booking it.

Frowning, Green Lantern decided to go investigate the sound, figuring that at the very least there would be a reckless driver she could tell off (even if that might be just the teensiest, tiniest bit of hypocritical of her).

She located the vehicle, a marked NERV car that had apparently just left the Geofront itself. It was speeding through the mercifully light midday traffic at a pace that would've given even her pause.

"Probably some Section Two idiot out joyriding or something," she grumbled darkly, never having thought fondly of NERV's secret police and bodyguard force.

She headed downwards, intending to fly next to the car and knock on the driver's side window. Before she could get close, however, she heard a high pitched whistling sound from above them and turned to look at its source.

A small but doubtlessly deadly rocket was streaking after the frantically speeding car.

Green Lantern didn't even bother to try and figure out where the hell the thing had come from. Instead, she reacted immediately, and a beam of emerald light shot out from her ring, quickly forming a force bubble around the weapon.

However, the weapon flew through the bubble as though it didn't exist. The luminous superwoman let out a little yelp of surprise and dismay, noticing too late that the tip of rocket had been painted a bright yellow.

The rocket almost slammed into the NERV car, and it would have hit its target dead-on if not for the way the driver turned sharply to the left at the last possible second. So instead, the weapon crashed into the street right next to the vehicle, exploding into a great fireball of orange and red and sending the black car hurtling through the air, spinning end over end.

Her eyes widening, Green Lantern poured her will into the ring, and a pair of jade hands burst forth from her band of power. They grabbed hold of the car before it could crash back into the street and instead gently set it down, but Green Lantern was sure that whoever was inside that thing had been thrown around pretty badly.

_Here's hoping they buckled up,_ she thought as she landed next to the car.

Forming a ring construct of the jaws of life, she tore both the doors on the left side of the car clean off.

Sitting in the front were, as she had expected, a pair of Section Two goons. The driver had a bleeding cut across his temple, but otherwise the both of them seemed fine.

In the back seat, however…

"Shinji-kun!" Green Lantern exclaimed, feeling her blood turn to ice in her veins as she abruptly realized how close she had come to losing her charge because she had been sloppy about trying to stop that rocket. "Are you all right?!"

"Wha?" he asked, clearly disoriented. Then he seemed to shake himself, and the glazed look left his eyes. "Oh, Green Lantern! Did you save me again?"

"Looks like it. Are you all right? What _happened_?" she asked in a great rush.

"There's a robot chasing me! It's trying to kill me!" Shinji exclaimed.

Green Lantern blinked. Even in Tokyo-3, that sounded like a pretty tall tale. She immediately suspected that Shinji had bumped his head while the car had been spinning through the air, or that he was still badly dazed by what he'd just endured.

"WE WILL DESTROY YOU!"

Or not.

Green Lantern looked up, and her eyes widened as she saw that Shinji's pursuer was indeed a robot. The damn thing was huge, and it was flying through the air, propelled by a pair of jets in its feet.

And it was totally, completely _yellow_.

A beam of emerald light shot out of her ring and formed a sphere of jade energy around the Third Child. "This'll take you to safety," she said.

"Wait!" Shinji exclaimed, but the robot didn't give him a chance to argue. A machine gun popped out of its forearm and it started firing at the ground near them.

Blocking bullets was usually no great task for her ring, but after that rocket, she wouldn't have been surprised to discover that the rounds being fired at her now had yellow tips. She sent the sphere holding Shinji flying on a roundabout route back to NERV, then flew away from the spray of bullets just before they came raining down on the street where she'd been standing a second ago.

"No!" the robot yelled, and went flying after the Third Child.

A lesser Green Lantern than she would have been totally at a loss for how to stop the mechanical menace. Given the weakness of the Oan power rings, fighting an enemy that was completely yellow would require a lot of creative thinking.

Fortunately, the whole reason Misato Katsuragi had originally been hired as the NERV Operations Director was her ability to come up with creative (and arguably rather insane) solutions to unconventional problems.

A pair of glowing emerald hands reached out and grabbed hold of a metal traffic light pole on a nearby street corner. With a slight tug, the green hands ripped the pole out of the concrete as though it was no more difficult than plucking a small weed out of wet earth.

Once the pole was completely free of the ground, the green hands rushed toward the robot, carrying their prize. There was loud, metallic _clang!_ as the pole made contact with the robot, and the pair of luminous hands quickly twisted the thick metal pole around its legs.

The robot let out a cry of anger that certainly didn't sound like it was coming from an emotionless machine, but Green Lantern wasn't done yet. Using the grip her ring constructs had on the pole wrapped around the robot, she abruptly turned the yellow giant upside down.

Instantly, the jets in the robot's feet started to work with gravity rather than against it, and the mechanical monster was sent hurtling straight for the street at a fantastic speed. With the quick thinking ability of a computer, it managed to turn off its jets before it hit the ground, but by then it didn't do much good. The robot slammed head first into the street with stupendous force, shattering asphalt and sending chunks of it flying everywhere, creating a deep crater in the ground.

"Well, guess that takes care of that," Green Lantern said smugly, clapping her hands together as if to dust them off.

Then the robot stirred and started to get up. Green Lantern's eyes widened.

"What?! That's a load of bull!" she exclaimed angrily. "What the hell are you, anyway?"

"We are Legion!" the robot responded. "And we will let no one stop us from getting our revenge!"

With that, a rack of small rockets popped out of either of the machine's shoulders. Green Lantern immediately noted that the nose of every one of them had been painted yellow. One of them, doubtlessly the one that had nearly blown up the NERV car, was missing.

That still left about a dozen of the damn things, though.

And Legion fired every single one of them at her.

Green Lantern turned and flew off at top speed, the rockets hot on her trail.

_Crap, crap, crap!_ She thought frantically as she turned to look over her shoulder and found them all streaking after her. Being a military officer, she knew a thing or two about missiles and rockets. She knew that while there was a wide array of different seeker missiles in the world, very few of them could actually lock onto a target as small as a human. Existing technology was good enough to make such a weapon, but there just wasn't any real need for one.

Yet Green Lantern had a whole cluster of the damn things chasing her.

_Who the hell designed that robot?_ She wondered, then pushed the thought aside as a question for later. At the current moment, she only needed to worry about surviving.

Green Lantern fired several blasts of energy out of her ring and at the rockets, but the damn things were just moving way too fast for her to hit. If not for the yellow tips, she would have just thrown up a barrier of light between her and them, but her attempt to stop the one Legion had fired at the NERV car had shown that obviously wouldn't work.

Her brain worked in overdrive as she tried to figure out how to shake the rockets, but the only thing she knew of that could fool a seeker was a decoy flare. Unfortunately, even if she could ring up convincing decoys, that would cause the rockets to wander off into the city and probably kill people.

_Come on, come on, think!_ She commanded herself. _Every second you spend running away is a second that Legion thing can spend looking for Shinji!_

Part of the problem was though that she was a soldier, she was not a fighter pilot. Thwarting oncoming missiles was not something she'd even been trained to do, and she knew little more about it than what she'd seen in movies.

"Guess that's going to have to be good enough," she decided. "Ring, here's the plan…"

A second later, the Green Lantern accelerated to even greater speeds, putting slightly more distance between herself and the rockets, and she left the city limits. It took her less than two minutes to leave the bustling city entirely and arrive at the desolate, mountainous region which surrounded it.

"Tell me when, ring," she said as she flew directly toward the face of a particularly large mountain at top speed.

_"Acknowledged,"_ the ring replied.

_This had better work,_ she thought as the mountain she was heading for seemed to grow larger and larger, until it dominated her field of vision entirely, _otherwise, I'm paste, and Shinji will just have to hope that Power Girl is around or something._

* * *

Thousands of miles away, the Girl of Steel was flying over the city of Berlin, searching for the man she hoped could tell her what she was. She hummed a cheerful little tune as she scanned the city with her X-ray vision, trying to keep the anxiety she refused to acknowledge she was feeling under control.

* * *

Every instinct in Green Lantern's body was telling her to pull up as she got closer and closer to smashing into the mountain. Her imagination was painting vivid pictures of her as a green and red stain on the side of the rock face. But she had been chosen to wield the ring for her great willpower, among other things; she told her instincts to shut up and kept going.

This wouldn't work unless she waited until the very last moment.

Time seemed to elongate strangely as the final few moments were upon her. She didn't know if it was just because of all the adrenaline in her veins, or if it was some weird variant of the "life flashing before your eyes" effect, but whatever the reason, everything seemed to slow down.

It occurred to her that never before had she been in a battle, either as the Green Lantern or a soldier in the UN Army, where the chances of a fatal disaster seemed so high. She felt like if she survived, it would be by the skin of her teeth.

She wondered if this was how the Children felt whenever they went into battle against the Angels.

_"Now."_ Her ring spoke.

Green Lantern reacted instantly, making a sharp, ninety degree turn that no terrestrial plane could have ever dreamed of pulling off, so she was suddenly flying straight up rather than straight ahead. She missed slamming into the side of the mountain at Mach 2 by a little more than two and a half feet.

The rockets never had a chance of duplicating the luminous superwoman's feat. Each and every one of them crashed into the solid stone and blossomed into a great orange fireball.

"Well, that's one problem taken care of," Green Lantern said to herself. "Now to deal with the big yellow one. Ring, locate Legion."

A beam of emerald light shot out from the top of her power ring and went streaking back toward the city. Green Lantern started to follow it, but she soon decided that it wouldn't be wise to engage the robot again without some kind of heavy weaponry of her own to throw at it. Fortunately, inspiration struck, and she took a detour toward the city dump.

* * *

"What the hell do you mean you don't know where he is?" Kaji snapped into the phone.

"I mean we don't know where he is," one of the Section Two agents who had gone to retrieve the Third Child answered sheepishly. "After that big yellow thing almost blew us up, the Green Lantern showed up, put him in this green bubble thing, and sent him flying off."

"Why did you even leave the base with him, anyway?" Kaji demanded in a low growl.

The man on the other end of the line paused, as though the question had caught him completely by surprise. Apparently, he'd never even considered _not_ leaving the base with Shinji.

"Well, you told us to get him to safety," the agent finally replied in a small voice.

"And did you ever consider getting him to the safety of Unit One, which we may well need to deploy in order to stop this thing?" Kaji asked.

"…no."

The spy turned Operations Director squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead with his free hand. He was starting to understand why Katsuragi had always hated Section Two so damn much. He was going to have to ask her how she'd managed to get so many members of that group transferred to Maintenance Team Thirteen (a.k.a. the Unluckies), because the wonder agents who'd gone for Shinji certainly deserved such a trip.

Then again, Kaji knew the man in charge of NERV's Human Resources department a little, and the long haired man had a sinking suspicion that the guy wouldn't be nearly as accommodating to someone lacking Katsuragi's very impressive cleavage.

On that thought, Kaji allowed himself a brief moment to contemplate how his expedition to Tokyo-3 had gone so very, very wrong after his ex-girlfriend had resigned from the post he now filled.

"We'll discuss this later, agent," Kaji said ominously and then hung up the phone, not waiting for the other man to reply.

"Sir, we're picking up the Angel's wave form pattern in the northeast quadrant of the city," Aoba reported. "I think we have cameras in that area that can show it to us…"

The lieutenant tapped a few keys at his terminal, and the command center's main screen started to show the image of the yellow robot/Angel as it, well, seemed to throw a temper tantrum in the middle of the street. He winced at the sight of the multiple burning cars and limp bodies surrounding the mechanical monstrosity.

And yet part of him, the part that was very much a spy, was intrigued. Whatever that thing was, it wasn't an ordinary Angel; while those mysterious monsters came in all shapes and sizes, none of them had ever been even remotely mechanical in nature. And this thing wasn't acting like any of the other Angels had. On the contrary, its behavior seemed to throw even Ikari for a loop.

_What is this all about, Commander?_ He wondered.

Unfortunately for him, he now had an unwanted job to do which involved espionage not at all, and it was time he did it.

"Evacuate the city," he ordered. "Transform Tokyo-3 into wartime configuration as soon as everyone's in the shelters. And call Asuka and Rei in. We may need to deploy an EVA to stop that thing."

"No."

Everyone turned to see Gendo Ikari, who had just entered the command center. None of them had heard him come in.

"Sir?" Kaji asked with a frown.

"You may evacuate the civilians and transform the city if you wish, Mr. Kaji," Gendo said. "But no Evangelions will be deployed against this new threat without my express permission."

"Why not?" Kaji couldn't help but blurt out.

"NERV and EVA exist to kill Angels," Gendo said. "Whatever that thing out there is, and regardless of what the MAGI say, it is _not_ an Angel."

"But, sir, it's registering a blue pattern," Kaji protested.

"It is _not_ an Angel," Gendo repeated in a voice that utterly dripped with quiet menace.

Kaji's eyes narrowed, but all he said was, "Yes, sir."

"Sir!" Makoto suddenly spoke up. "One of the base's security cameras is picking something up! It's the Third Child."

Without being told to do so, the bespectacled technician put the image he was talking about on one of the command center's screens. It showed a sphere of emerald light that held Shinji within it flying toward headquarters. As Kaji watched, the thing brought the pilot of Unit One right to the base's main entrance and then dissipated, gently lowering Shinji to the ground as it did so.

"Looks like the Third Child's coming here," Aoba remarked unnecessarily as they watched Shinji enter the base.

"First good news I've had all day," Kaji commented.

* * *

The buildings of Tokyo-3 were starting to sink into the Geofront as Green Lantern flew through the mutable city in search of Legion, using her ring to carry her "secret weapon" with her. In place of the gleaming skyscrapers, darker colored, more ominous looking buildings that bristled with weapons were rising.

Green Lantern wholeheartedly approved of switching the city to battle mode in the face of Legion. In fact, she wondered what had taken Kaji so long to give the order to do so. However, she seriously hoped that he wasn't intending to open fire on Legion with the city's weapons turrets. The damn things just hadn't been designed to target any enemy that was less than ten stories tall, so if Kaji used them, he'd probably just end up making half the city destroy itself while not even offing Legion in the process.

Of course, her ex wouldn't be that foolish…would he?

_I better trash that thing before Kaji can try it!_ She decided, quickening her pace.

Soon she came upon Legion again, and she saw that not everyone had made it to the safety of the shelters. The damn thing had apparently started to just run rampant on its surroundings, judging by the damage and bodies which surrounded it. At the current moment, Legion held a small man up in the air so his eyes met the machine's optics.

"Where are they? Where are the ones who hurt me?!" Legion bellowed. "Where are the Evangelion pilots?!"

"Th-They're downtown!" the man lied, doubtlessly in an attempt to avoid the fate of the dead bodies which were strewn about. "Corner of Ogata and Mitsuishi! Can't miss 'em!"

"You are lying!" Legion yelled. "You do not know, either!"

The yellow giant would have killed the man then, but a sphere of emerald light formed around him at that moment, whisking the poor man from Legion's grasp. His shirt was badly torn as he was pulled away, but otherwise he was unharmed. With a thought, Green Lantern directed the force bubble to take the guy to the entrance to one of the shelters.

"You!" Legion roared, taking notice of Green Lantern. "You're back!"

"That's right!" she said. "And this time I brought a present for you! Here! Catch!"

With that, she sent the junked public bus she had picked up from the scrap heap hurtling toward Legion.

The mechanical monster simultaneously attempted to blast the bus to pieces with fire from its machine gun and to run out of its path, but both efforts proved insufficient. The rusty but very large commuter vehicle crashed dead on into the robot, and it kept going, taking the yellow giant with it, until it had slammed into the side of a nearby building. The force of the collision nearly shattered the concrete wall, and the front half of the old bus folded up like an accordion.

Landing gently on the street, Green Lantern winced slightly at the sight, feeling an involuntary twinge of sympathy. She would _not_ want to have been the one caught between those two large objects.

Still, she'd already given Legion some serious punishment only for the thing to shrug it off. She watched the remains of the destroyed bus warily, waiting for any sign of movement.

And movement there was. The dust had barely begun to settle when she saw the bus start to shake, and mere seconds after that, the twisted remains of the large vehicle were sent hurtling away from the building it had crashed into. The thing slid along the ground for a good forty feet before it came to a stop, sending orange sparks flying and creating an awful screech as it went.

Legion clomped forward, not a scratch on its saffron hull. Green Lantern cursed.

_What does it take to hurt this damn thing?_ She wondered.

"You will tell us where the Evangelion pilots are!" the thing roared. "You will tell us where the ones who hurt us are!"

"Hell no, I will not!" Green Lantern snapped back.

Legion clearly didn't care much for that response. That damned machine gun it had in its forearm popped out, and it opened fire at her. Green Lantern still strongly suspected that the bullets might have yellow tips.

She reacted on reflex, sending a ribbon of energy out of her ring. It morphed into a large hand which dug its fingers into the road, then pulled the asphalt up, forming a shield as wide as the street. The bullets slammed into it harmlessly, and Legion ceased firing.

Before the robot could switch to any bigger guns, Green Lantern went on the offensive. Emerald light surrounded the entire chunk of asphalt she had ripped up and then tore it into two pieces. The two pieces were then crumpled up, changed from flat sheets into large chunks of black, artificial stone.

With a mental command from Green Lantern, one of the obsidian boulders surged forward, crashing right into Legion and knocking the robot off its feet. She followed up with a blow from the other, hammering it into the street.

"Let's see how much of this abuse you can take," Green Lantern said, sending her improvised weapons crashing into Legion again and again like a flurry of punches from a champion prizefighter.

Unfortunately, it wasn't having much of an effect; the robot's chassis was stubbornly refusing to break, even under the furious assault, and Green Lantern began to wonder what the hell the damn thing was made from. Even titanium should have given under all the abuse by this point.

Then the robot managed to raise its arm, its right one, and a weapon emerged from the forearm, just like the machine gun it kept in its left arm.

This particular weapon, however, was no machine gun.

A pencil thin beam of blinding blue white light burst from the barrel of the new weapon and streaked up right into the center of one of Green Lantern's asphalt wrecking balls. The beam penetrated the asphalt without slowing down and flew straight upwards into the sky, continuing its path toward the heavens until she couldn't see it any longer.

Then the chunk of asphalt it had fired into exploded as though it had been filled with dynamite.

_Was that a __**positron**__ weapon?!_ Green Lantern thought, right before the shockwave from the blast swept over her.

The sheer force of the explosion sent Green Lantern flying, and she soon felt herself getting pummeled by chunks of what had once been the road as they flew in all directions. The damn things must have been moving at terrific speeds to actually hurt her, she thought dimly.

The next thing she knew, she was lying on the street, her head spinning. She could hear a low sound from nearby, and she realized that it was a loud groan emanating from her own lips.

Knowing that time was of the essence, Green Lantern ignored the protests of her body and sat up.

Only to find herself staring directly at Legion, who stood right in front of her.

Still dazed, she didn't quite react quickly enough to this discovery. She had only enough time to realize that she must have blacked out for a moment for Legion to suddenly be this close to her before the yellow giant reached down and picked her up with one enormous hand.

Lifting her up so she was eye level (or, more accurately, optics level) with it, Legion shouted, "You will tell us where you sent the pilot!"

"Never!" Green Lantern snapped defiantly.

"Then we will destroy you!" the yellow giant yelled, and began to tighten its grip on her.

The protective field generated by her power ring had kept her safe and comfortable in the deadly environment of outer space when she had ventured up there during her battle with the Tenth Angel. However, it was absolutely no defense against Legion's yellow fingers. Feeling like her ribcage was going to shatter under the unbearable pressure at any moment, Green Lantern threw her head back and screamed.

* * *

_A few minutes earlier…_

"Father!" Shinji exclaimed as he burst into the NERV command center, clad in his blue and white plug suit. "Why aren't we launching Unit One?"

Gendo didn't immediately respond to his son's query, instead taking a moment to look down at the boy from his high perch on the top tier of the command center.

"Why would we launch Unit One?" he finally asked.

"Why? Father, that Legion thing is going on a rampage!" Shinji exclaimed, pointing at the screen, which showed just that. "Even Green Lantern is having trouble with it!"

"The JSDF has deployed a taskforce from Tokyo-2," Gendo said calmly. "Their ETA is approximately a half an hour from now."

"A half an hour could be too late! Father, please let me go out there in Unit One now!" Shinji argued.

Under normal circumstances, he never would have fought with his father like this, but the Green Lantern had saved his life twice already. His conscience wouldn't let him just sit around in the base at a time like this.

And there was also the fact that—

"We are not going to deploy Unit One, or any of other Evangelions," Gendo said flatly.

"Why not?" Shinji demanded. "I thought NERV was supposed to protect Tokyo-3."

"NERV exists to defeat the Angels," Gendo said.

"But—"

"Third Child, has you ever considered how much it costs this organization to simply _activate_ an Evangelion?" Gendo asked him coldly.

"No," Shinji admitted reluctantly.

"The amount is very substantial," Gendo said. "Evangelions are not children's toys, Pilot Ikari, much as you might think of them as such. Therefore, in order to preserve our funding for the _essential_ battles, the ones that cannot be won without NERV, we cannot deploy an Evangelion every time you feel like playing hero, Third Child."

Shinji felt his face heat as a mixture of mortification, embarrassment, and anger surged through him. He had certainly never thought of EVA as a toy, and he wanted to say as much, but the dressing down his father had given him had taken the wind from his sails.

"B-But…" he stammered.

"Listen to me, Third Child," Gendo said, his voice dropping to positively arctic temperatures, "we are not going to deploy an Evangelion regardless of what you say. Now cease arguing with me, or I will send you back to your uncle's home, and I will make sure that you _never_ leave that town again."

"Y-Yes, sir," he stammered.

"Vacate the bridge, Third Child," Gendo ordered.

Shinji nodded and left, feeling guiltily grateful for the excuse to retreat.

He had always found his father intimidating, or at least he had for as long as he could remember, but that had been something else. Shinji still felt weak and shaky.

And even though he knew that it had to have been a trick of the light and his father's tinted glasses, for just a moment there, Shinji had sworn that the man's eyes had glowed yellow.

* * *

"Tell us where the pilot is!" Legion demanded, tightening his grip on Green Lantern even further.

Despite her best attempts to stop it, a cry of pain burst forth from her throat. "NO!" she yelled back.

"Tell me, or we will have to take our revenge on you, instead!" Legion snapped.

"Revenge…for what?" she grunted out, tears of pure agony starting to form in her eyes.

"The pilots hurt us! They destroyed the others! They stole our purpose! We will kill the pilots for what they did to us!" Legion yelled.

"Why the hell do you keep talking about yourself in the plural?" Green Lantern asked.

"We are the one who is many! We are Legion!" it yelled back.

"You also make no sense!" Green Lantern retorted, and sent a stream of emerald light burst from her ring.

The green ribbon grabbed hold of a bicycle that had had belonged to one of Legion's victims. The bike was sent hurtling toward the robot's back, only to bounce off harmlessly with a dull clunk.

Legion release a wordless cry of anger. "You cannot defeat us! Now tell us where you sent the pilot!" it roared, and tightened its grip even further.

Green Lantern felt one of her ribs snap under the immense pressure, and for a moment her vision went white with pain as a loud scream tore out of her lungs. Clearly, it was time to up the ante.

Somehow, through the fog of pain and desperation, she was able to think that what she was about to do would generate a lot of paperwork, and Kaji would find a way to unload it all on her. She just knew he would.

Two steams of light burst forth from her ring, each one twice the size of one of an Evangelion's mitts. Legion, who had his back to the luminous appendages, either didn't notice them or chose to disregard them as they went to their assigned task.

"Our patience grows thin," Legion announced. "We would prefer if you told us where the pilot is, but we are willing to tear apart this city until we find him. Until we find them all."

"All right, all right!" Green Lantern said. "I'll tell you where I sent him, but first, you have to do something for me!"

"What?" Legion asked warily, seeming not to notice as a shadow suddenly fell over them.

"Look behind you," Green Lantern said.

Legion turned and was confronted with the sight of a nearby building, one of the city's enormous weapons turrets, tilting dangerously toward him. It was being pushed over by a pair of huge green hands.

"Tim_beeeer_!" Green Lantern yelled as loudly as she could as the building started to fall in earnest.

Legion tried to run, but the suit of power armor that held it had been built for power, not speed.

God only knew how many tons of metal went crashing down into the street atop Legion and Green Lantern, sending dust and debris flying everywhere as the ground and the entire Geofront trembled from the force of the impact. Then, as if to add injury to injury, the missiles that were hidden inside the faux building started to explode, one setting off the next in a cascade of fire and smoke that left the already twisted metal of the destroyed turret burnt, blackened, and partially melted.

The sounds of the great crash and the explosion echoed within the confines of the city's artificial canyons for some time. And then, all was silent.

At least until a thin green light peeked out of the smoking rubble and some of the debris were shifted aside as Green Lantern crawled out. Once she was free, the emerald superwoman lay atop the great pile of scrap and allowed herself to release a low groan. The protective field her ring generated had protected her from most of the abuse, but having a building fall on her still hadn't been pleasant. And she still had the injuries Legion had given her earlier to deal with.

"Ring, patch me up," she commanded.

_"Acknowledged,"_ it replied.

Green Lantern winced as she could feel her broken rib being slowly put back into place. The ring would hold it there—and close the multitude of small wounds she'd gotten from the falling debris—until her body could properly heal everything itself. She wouldn't be 100 percent until then, but she'd be able to function normally once the ring had done its work.

Suddenly, there was a burst of noise near her as Legion erupted out of the rubble, sending pieces of debris flying everywhere. Green Lantern's eyes widened in horror.

"_Raugh!_" it roared furiously as it finished digging its way out and then went stomping toward her. "We will kill you! We will kill you and find the pilots ourselves!" It proclaimed as the machine gun popped out of its left forearm.

Staring down the barrel of the weapon (which also had been painted entirely yellow), Green Lantern desperately tried to get out of the way. However, even the slightest movement brought a spike of pain so intense that it made her gasp. She couldn't crawl away, much less fly.

With Legion standing at point blank range, she could see the bullets that its machine gun was using. As she'd feared, the rounds did indeed have yellow tips.

_Oh god, what will happen to Shinji when I'm gone?_ She thought, resisting the urge to squeeze her eyes shut in the face of her doom.

Then a fist slammed into Legion's side with enough force to send the thing flying through the air. The yellow monstrosity roared in anger as it went, finally crashing into the side of another giant weapons turret, the metal side of the faux building partially crumpling from the impact.

Shocked into complete silence, Green Lantern blinked and looked up at her savior. A blue haired young woman stood next to her, clad in a red and blue leotard that was embellished with bronze. A tiara with a red star emblazoned in the center sat on her head. On one hip hung a lasso made of a golden rope, while on the other was a sheath holding a sword.

_Wonder Girl,_ Green Lantern thought.

The blue haired superwoman had been the first one to debut, showing up several months back during the Jet Alone demonstration. Her well intentioned attempt to stop the disaster had almost killed Misato, who'd been inside the giant robot at the time, trying to deactivate it.

_Heh, looks like we're even now,_ Green Lantern thought, the corners of her lips quirking upwards in a small smirk.

"Wait here," Wonder Girl told her fellow superwoman in a soft voice. "I will handle this now."

Green Lantern wanted to tell her to wait, that Legion was one seriously tough mechanical son of a bitch, and that they could take it together once the ring had finished its work on her. However, the Amazon was already off before she could say anything.

"I do not know who you are," Wonder Girl spoke to Legion in a voice that somehow managed to have the ring of authority despite how quiet it was, "but unless you surrender, I will have to hurt you."

"We will never surrender!" Legion roared, raising its right arm and firing its small positron rifle at the Amazon.

Wonder Girl instantly raised her arms, crossing her wrists in front of her face, and the beam of blue-white light struck her silver bracers. Green Lantern was certain that the things would instantly be annihilated by the robot's weapon, but by some miracle, the antimatter beam didn't cause them to explode violently.

"Very well," Wonder Girl said softly as the beam petered out. "We will do this the hard way, then."

Legion didn't fire its positron weapon at the Amazon again (it was probably unable to fire the positron rifle again until the barrel cooled, Green Lantern realized). Instead, a pair of long, thin blades popped out of the back of its hands and then began to hum with the distinctive sound of progressive weaponry.

"Die!" Legion roared, charging at Wonder Girl, its feet kicking up chunks of the asphalt of the street beneath them as it ran.

The blue haired superwoman didn't even flinch at seeing a robot that weighed more than an SUV wielding a pair of some of the most deadly melee weapons ever made coming at her at full tilt. Instead, she just drew the sword which hung at her hip, revealing a long bronze blade that gleamed in the sun.

Green Lantern's eyes widened incredulously as she saw Wonder Girl preparing to combat progressive knives with a sword that looked like it belonged in a museum.

_She's not…she can't be…_

It happened so quickly that the luminous superwoman was barely able to follow it. Just as Legion got into striking distance, the Amazon swung her sword, and the bronze weapon managed to strike both of the yellow monstrosity's progressive knives in a single arc.

Both of the super modern blades, which should have cut through the antiquated bronze sword with perfect ease, shattered upon contact with it, leaving Legion with only useless stubs of metal protruding from the backs of its hands.

However, the yellow titan wasn't discouraged much. It machine gun made yet another appearance and it immediately opened fire at the Amazon.

Wonder Girl didn't even bother to block the rounds with her armlets this time. Instead, the blue-haired superwoman took to the air, moving too quickly for Legion to hit her. Her sword still clutched tightly in her fist, she flew toward her enemy.

"You will not stop us from killing the ones who hurt us!" Legion yelled as it continued to fire her. "You will not—!"

The big robot shut up as the point of Wonder Girl's sword impacted with the side of its head. However, the blade was unable to penetrate Legion's armor, because a cluster of little hexagonal barriers made from orange-red light flashed into existence between the tip of weapon and the robot.

_An AT Field?!_ Green Lantern thought, her mind reeling as several things started to click into place. _So that's why this damn thing is so crazy tough!_

But this realization just created more questions, such as how the hell Legion could have an AT Field to begin with, and why that AT field looked so unusual. The only Angel she'd seen with one that looked similar was…

_The last one, the one that attacked the MAGI, the one I __**didn't**__ see explode spectacularly,_ Green Lantern thought darkly. _My god, was NERV actually __**stupid**__ enough to try and weaponize an __**Angel**__?_

Her thoughts were cut off as Legion's AT field suddenly gave out and Wonder Girl's sword abruptly managed to finish its journey, penetrating the side of Legion's head. The end of the blade almost instantly burst forth from the other side of the yellow monster's head, covering in a thick, shiny goop that was a sort of mother-of-pearl color.

_Ew,_ Green Lantern thought, looking away and failing to notice how some of the goo that fell to the ground began to slink away like an oversized slug.

"_Noooo!_" Legion howled. "You have killed more of us! We will destroy you for this!"

It lashed out with one of its thick metal arms, catching Wonder Girl full across the torso and sending her flying. There was a meaty _thwack!_ that made Green Lantern wince, but the Amazon didn't seem to have been hurt very badly the blow; she didn't release even a grunt of pain and had soon used her flying ability to come to a stop in midair.

But Legion wasn't done yet. The mechanical monstrosity spread its arms wide, and several doors all across its broad torso slid aside, exposing a small arsenal's worth of rockets.

_Holy shit!_ Green Lantern thought as Legion launched every single rocket it had just revealed at Wonder Girl.

The distance between the two combatants wasn't very great, and Green Lantern knew that the speed of those rockets could go from zero to really damn fast in the blink of an eye. Evading them might have been impossible for Wonder Girl, but she didn't even make the attempt, instead just crossing her arms in front of her again.

"No!" Green Lantern shouted as the Amazon vanished within a cloud of fire and smoke.

The jade gladiator shut her eyes and grit her teeth, anguished at seeing the Amazon taken out so brutally.

"Are you all right, Lantern?" a soft voice asked her.

The ringslinger's eyes popped open, and she looked in amazement at Wonder Girl. The Amazon had a layer of black soot on her, standing out in stark contrast to her pale skin, but otherwise, she looked completely unscathed.

"Uh, yeah," she said.

_Damn, I didn't know she was so tough,_ Green Lantern thought.

"Good," Wonder Girl replied, then grabbed her lasso, even as Legion started to scream oaths at her.

"Kill you!" Legion roared, raising its machine gun.

Wonder Girl let her lasso fly, and the loop landed right around Legion's outstretched arm.

Energy suddenly crackled across the surface of Legion's chassis and then the length of Wonder Girl's lasso. The blue haired superwoman let out a cry of pain as electricity was pumped into her body, her golden lasso turned into a live wire.

Wasting no time, Legion pulled hard on the lasso, yanking Wonder Girl toward him. As soon as she was close enough, he struck her with his massive fist, sending her crashing into the wall of a nearby building.

Not pausing long enough to allow Wonder Girl to catch her breath, Legion again deployed the positron rifle in its right arm and fired. The Amazon's crimson eyes widened as she saw the deadly beam streaking toward her.

Only to be blocked by a shield made of green light.

"Patch me up quicker next time, ring," Green Lantern said as she walked over to the battered Amazon.

_"Acknowledged,"_ the ring replied.

"You all right?" the jade heroine asked Wonder Girl.

"Yes," the Amazon replied.

"Good," Green Lantern said. "Now let's take this thing together."

"Agreed," Wonder Girl said.

"We'll kill you both!" Legion announced, opening fire with its machine gun again.

_How much ammo does that damn thing __**have**__?_ Green Lantern wondered in annoyance.

Wonder Girl jumped forward, right into the path of the oncoming rounds and raised her arms. There were a series of loud _plink!_ sounds, and Green Lantern realized, much to her amazement, that the Amazon was actually deflecting the bullets with the bracers she wore on her forearms.

_Okay, I'm officially putting __**this**__ girl on my official "do not piss off" list,_ Green Lantern thought even as her ring began to glow brightly.

The ground beneath Legion started to glow, and before the mechanical monster was able to react, he was caught within a ball of asphalt, which itself was surrounded by jade light. Legion roared with anger from within, but Green Lantern kept up the pressure, denying it an escape.

"Hey, Blue!" Green Lantern shouted. "Go long!"

Wonder Girl just gave her a blank look in response, so Green Lantern made a throwing motion and pointed off into the distance. The Amazon nodded and flew off in the direction Green Lantern had indicated.

"I will destroy you!" Legion's muffled roar came from within the asphalt sphere.

Green Lantern ignored him. "And Mean Green goes for the pass!" she narrated for herself as she sent Legion's impromptu prison hurtling into the sky.

A pair of jade binoculars appeared in Green Lantern's hand, and she peered through them, following Legion's path. The robot-wrapped-in-asphalt approached Wonder Girl, who twined her fingers together, and then slammed the big black ball downwards with her joined fists. Legion went falling downwards at an _incredible_ speed.

_**BOOM!**_

Green Lantern felt the ground shake noticeably beneath her boots, and she let out a low, impressed whistle. She'd known that Wonder Girl was tremendously strong, but that display had still been a potent reminder.

"Clearly, that girl eats _all_ her spinach," Green Lantern remarked to no one in particular as she let her construct of the binoculars dissipate and flew off to rejoin the battle. "Probably drinks all her milk, too." She added with a grin, feeling good about this battle for the first time since she'd laid eyes on Legion.

It took Green Lantern little time to locate Wonder Girl and Legion, finding that the former was pummeling the later with her small but powerful fists. Every blow sent the large robot/Angel thing reeling.

_I don't think she'll get past the AT field like that, though,_ Green Lantern mused.

"Ring," she said, "scan this thing for a core."

_"Unable to comply,"_ the ring replied. _"Color of hostile prevents scan."_

"Damn," Green Lantern muttered to herself. "Looks like we'll have to deliver the final blow the hard way."

Ripping another traffic light out of the street, the jade superwoman used her ring to bend it into the shape of a giant U and kept it hovering in the air.

"Wonder Girl!" she shouted. "Get clear!"

The Amazon did not question or protest the command; she instantly pulled away from Legion, and the yellow monstrosity was able to regain its balance.

But he didn't get to keep it. The metal pole slammed into Legion, moving at over 100 kilometers per hour, and the robot was caught within the U. It let out a cry of surprise and indignation as it was slammed into the ground, the ends of the pole getting buried into the ground and pinning it soundly to the street.

"That oughta hold it, for a little while, at least," Green Lantern said. "Think you can cut that thing open, Blue?"

"There is only one way to find out," Wonder Girl replied, reaching for her sword.

A missile slammed into the ground near them before the Amazon's long fingers could even touch her weapon, and this one was far larger than anything Legion had thrown at them thus far.

Green Lantern screamed as the force of the unexpected explosion threw her off her feet and sent her flying straight through the storefront window of a hardware store that apparently didn't retract into the Geofront. Without her protective field, she would have been fatally stabbed by countless glass shards.

She landed on the store's tile floor and immediately sat up with a groan. Her side was throbbing where her ring had hastily patched her broken rib, and she would have bet her entire supply of Yeibisu that her whole body was going to ache the next morning.

If she made it to the next morning, that was.

"That missile must have come from the city's defense grid," Wonder Girl said, and Green Lantern only then realized that the Amazon was right next to her.

"Yeah, what the hell is wrong with NERV?" Green Lantern asked. "Why are they shooting at us?"

She was becoming increasingly certain that NERV had created Legion for the express purpose of killing the superwomen, but she couldn't believe they'd be so blatant as to turn the city's own weapons of them, thus erasing any possibility of plausible deniability.

_"It is likely that Legion has seized control of part of the defensive grid,"_ her ring spoke up unexpectedly. _"There is Angelic matter similar to that of Legion's inside one of the city's defensive structures."_

"What? Show me!" Green Lantern demanded.

Her ring projected a scale hologram of the city, complete with a small, pulsing mass inside one of the buildings to show the presence of the Angel part. Said small, pulsing mass that was steadily growing in size.

Green Lantern immediately realized that it was very close to where they'd been fighting Legion only minutes ago. Then she remembered how some grayish gunk had come out of Legion's yellow shell when Wonder Girl had stabbed it and swore.

"One of us is going to have to take care of Legion's other half before it takes over the whole city," she told Wonder Girl.

"Agreed," the other superwoman said with a small nod.

"I call the ugly yellow one," Green Lantern said, getting up.

"Are you sure that is wise?" Wonder Girl asked, glancing outside at Legion, who was still pinned to the street but would doubtlessly get free in a moment or two.

_Must have noticed I haven't been attacking Legion directly and guessed that something's up. Clever girl,_ Green Lantern thought.

"I'm sure," the luminous superwoman said. "Trust me, I've got a plan." She added, her gaze moving to a shelf that was stocked with cans of paint.

Wonder Girl nodded in agreement and quickly departed from the store, soon taking to the air.

"Hey, metal brains, ready for round two?" Green Lantern taunted as she walked out of the hardware store.

"We will kill you!" Legion roared.

"You seriously need some more original threats, pal," Green Lantern said. "That one's already so old it's not even scary anymore!"

"Kill you!" Legion shouted, its machine gun making an appearance for what felt like the thousandth time to the Green Lantern.

She didn't give it the opportunity to fire. Emerald light shone from her ring, and suddenly several cans of paint came flying out of the hardware store, surrounded by a similarly green corona. The cans crashed into Legion at high speed, not even fazing the monstrosity but cracking open and splattering it in several different colors of paint from head to toe. Suddenly, the thing looked like an evil robot that had been tie-dyed.

"You cannot destroy me!" Legion growled.

"Actually, now that you're not yellow anymore, I can," Green Lantern informed Legion smugly, firing a blast of energy from her ring straight at it.

The beam of green light crashed into Legion, and its AT Field flared into visibility, shielding it. However, the barrier wasn't very powerful as the Angels' AT Fields went, and Green Lantern had become a much more potent ringslinger since the time when she'd struggled so hard to slay the Ninth. The attack soon penetrated the AT Field and went straight through Legion, leaving a smoking, fist sized hole in the yellow giant.

"NO! You have killed more of us!" it shouted.

"I intend to kill all of you before I'm done!" Green Lantern retorted.

A jade hammer big enough for an Evangelion to use formed in the air above Legion and swung downwards, crashing right into its head and partially crumpling it. Legion was driven into the ground up to its waist like a wooden stake by the force of the blow.

"Now, let's get you out of that armor," Green Lantern said as she formed a construct of Unit One's progressive knife, which was the same size as the genuine article.

"_No!_" Legion shouted as the knife flew toward it.

Green Lantern ignored its cry, and the glowing blade slashed downwards, cleaving Legion cleanly into two separate pieces. The thing's screams immediately fell silent as its speaker was destroyed.

The emerald superwoman grinned triumphantly.

Then grayish goo immediately burst forth from the destroyed armor, spreading in all directions over the street at an impossible rate. Within seconds, Green Lantern had to take to the air in order to avoid the stuff. There was already far more of the gunk on the street than could have possibly been contained within the armor.

"Crap," Green Lantern hissed, realizing that she may have just made a huge blunder. "I never thought the damn thing would start growing _this_ fast!"

_Well,_ she thought as she watched the Angel spread like crazy, _here's hoping Wonder Girl is having a better time of it than me._

* * *

This was not good, Wonder Girl decided as she approached the building-sized weapons turret that the Angel had taken over. The tiny bit of it she had evicted from Legion's body when she'd stabbed it had already grown enormously; the faux building was utterly dripping with gray, faintly glowing goo.

"Destroying this will require drastic action," she decided as she flew toward the infected turret, a plan already having formed in her mind.

In order to take out this part of the Angel, she would have no choice but to detonate the turret's entire stockpile of missiles inside it, which would hopefully provide enough destructive force to get the job done.

Her face set in a determined expression, she flew right into the wall of the faux building, tearing as hole through the metal to get inside. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the interior were all absolutely covered in Angel slime, she noted with a slight wince.

Tendrils of it burst up from the floor and pounced at her like some kind of attacking predator. The Amazon instinctively raised her arms, trying to block the strikes with her bracers, but against this foe, even the indestructible metal was no defense. The Angel gloomed onto her arms, and Wonder Girl let out a small cry of surprise and tried to wipe it off. However, the stuff refused to let go, and started to spread. She could feel it penetrating her flesh, extending thin tendrils into her being like a plant growing roots in the soil.

It was invading her body, and she didn't want to think about what would happen when the invasion was complete. She had to destroy this Angel as soon as possible.

Wonder Girl began flying down a maintenance stairwell, fervently hoping that she was going in the direction of the building's extra missiles. Though she knew much of NERV and the Geofront like the back of her hand, she had never been inside one of these buildings before.

All the while as she traveled, the Angel sent wads of itself flying at her, attempting to cover her with itself. She did her best to avoid it all, but the Angel was assaulting her from all directions; dodging all of it was an impossible task even for the Amazon.

She could feel it growing on her and growing _into_ her as she searched. And as it proceeded, she could feel a cold and foreign presence pressing against her mind.

_I must hurry,_ Wonder Girl thought, pressing her superhuman body even harder as she rushed to find what she sought.

The Amazon threw open a door that led the lowest section of the faux building, trying to ignore the way the Angel was almost coving her entire body from the neck down by this point.

The giant weapons turret's basement was stocked almost to the rafters with missiles larger than Wonder Girl herself was. If a single one of them detonated, they would set off all the others, taking the entire building with them.

Racing over to the nearest missile, the Amazon dug her fingers into a small panel on the side and ripped it off, revealing a small cluster of wires and buttons. Suddenly feeling grateful for having studied virtually every aspect of NERV and Tokyo-3, the blue-haired superwoman wasted no time in prepping the missile for detonation, doing her best to ignore the creeping presence of the Angel as she did so.

The missile was just the push of a button away from exploding when the Angel played its last card, connecting its own essence to her central nervous system directly.

Wonder Girl released a small gasp as she suddenly found herself no longer in the basement of the faux building. Now she stood on the surface of an ocean of red LCL, with no land in sight anywhere as far as the eye could see. The world was totally empty of anyone except her… and the perfect copy of her that was about three free away from her, standing waist-deep in the LCL and dressed in a flawless replica of her own costume.

"Angel," Wonder Girl immediately identified the doppelganger.

The duplicate Amazon frowned. "Is that what I am? An Angel?"

"You do not know?" Wonder Girl asked.

Looking confused, the duplicate shook her head. "I think I did once, but…we were hurt. We were hurt, and it did something to my mind. I don't know things anymore."

"I will not allow you to stop me," Wonder Girl told the Angel softly.

"Why are you so determined to destroy me?" the duplicate asked, tilting her head to the side slightly in what looked like a gesture of genuine curiosity.

"Because you will destroy everything I know," Wonder Girl replied.

The duplicate smiled and shook her head, as though she was dealing with a very young, very naïve child. "No, Wonder Girl. I have seen the inside of your mind. That isn't the reason," the Angel said. "You do this because you are a puppet, and your masters would want you to do this."

"I am not a puppet," Wonder Girl replied in a soft, cold voice.

"You are," the Angel smirked. "You believe that you are becoming free and independent because you have been doing things behind the Commander's back, things the Commander would not approve of. But in truth, you have just become the puppet of the Olympians who saw you given your super powers to begin with. Serving two masters makes you no less of a puppet, Rei Ayanami, and a puppet is all you shall ever be."

The Wonder Girl's crimson eyes widened and she said nothing.

"Join with me," the Angel said. "Become one with me. Rebel for once in your existence, and together, we will find completion. I have some vague memories of what it is like to complete, back before I was hurt. It is very… pleasant."

Wonder Girl was silent for a long moment. "Perhaps you are not entirely incorrect," she spoke at last. "Perhaps I have spent much of my life as a puppet, even those parts when I thought I was reaching toward freedom."

The Angel smiled softly, as though pleased to see comprehension dawning within the Amazon.

"But even if it is true that a puppet is all I will ever be, I have seen that I have the ability to choose my master, at the very least," Wonder Girl continued. "I do _not_ choose you."

The doppelganger's eyes widened. "No, wait—!"

But it was too late. In one fluid motion, Wonder Girl drew her sword and swung at her duplicate. The duplicate shattered into pieces like she was made of glass, and the world of the red sea followed an instant later…

Wonder Girl sucked in a swift breath of air as she found herself back in the middle of the stockpile of missiles. She had thrown off the Angel's influence for the moment, but the detestable life form still covered her. It was only a matter of time until it invaded the sanctity of her mind again.

The Amazon triggered the detonator on the missile she was working with.

* * *

"Well, I guess that takes care of _that_ part of the Angel," Green Lantern mused as she saw an explosion stretching up to the skies in the distance. "Wish I could say I had my half all wrapped up, too."

A flamethrower made from jade light appeared in her hands, and the luminous superwoman pointed it at the Angel goo and pulled the trigger. The weapon construct spat out a gout of emerald fire that reduced everything it touched to ash, but like everything else she'd been trying, it just wasn't doing the job fast enough. The Angel was simply growing too damn fast; it had nearly spread out over an entire city block by this point.

"It'll take an N2 mine to get rid of this thing if it gets much further," she moaned to herself. "Okay, Green Lantern, time for some drastic measures."

She flew high over her target, surveying the full extent of her enemy. The Angel was like a cancer, a malignant tumor, on the face of the city. The only way to save Tokyo-3 was to treat the Angel as such and cut it out.

"No fear," she whispered to herself, pouring every ounce of willpower she could muster into her ring.

A stream of emerald radiance so bright that it was almost white shot forth from her band of power, streaking down toward the ground. Before it struck the earth, however, it began to spread out in all directions, forming the start of an enormous sphere. The jade orb cut cleanly through a portion of the Geofront roof, severing the infected city block from the rest of Tokyo-3 completely.

"Incinerate," she commanded through clenched teeth.

From within the sphere, deadly beams of emerald energy started crashing down into the stolen chunk of real estate, reducing buildings and Angelic matter alike to ashes. However, there was just too much in there for the process to be instantaneous, and in its dying moments, the Angel frantically tried to escape, sending its remaining mass slamming against the sides of the green sphere it was caught in like some sort of gooey battering ram.

Drops of sweat popped out on Green Lantern's brow. Just lifting the huge chunk of the city wouldn't, by itself, have been such a huge effort for her, but trying to destroy everything inside her force sphere, with the Angel trashing at the walls of its prison in a fierce attempt at escape, the strain to preserve the integrity of her construct was immense. She felt like she was holding up the entire earth, not with her muscles, but with her mind and her very soul. And she felt like either one of those could potentially snap at any moment.

_If you drop this thing, it'll fall down into the Geofront, and the Angel will probably head straight for NERV,_ she told herself. _You sent Shinji-kun to the base._

As always, thoughts of the Third Child strengthened her resolve, and with it, her willpower. She directed her newfound strength into her ring, and the process of reducing everything inside the energy sphere she'd created to cinders accelerated rapidly. In a second, she couldn't even see inside the thing; the light of her destructive power was proving too great for her eyes to bear.

Then it was over. The incineration stopped, and Green Lantern looked down to see that her energy sphere now held only a huge pile of harmless ash.

She allowed the sphere to dissipate, letting it snow gray inside the Geofront, then took off in the direction of the building the other part of the Angel had taken control of. She found only a very large pile of rubble there.

"Ring, is Wonder Girl under there?" she asked.

"_Negative,"_ the ring replied.

"Are her… remains under there?" Green Lantern asked with some trepidation.

_"Negative,"_ her ring said again.

The luminous superwoman breathed a small sigh of relief. "Damn, that girl is one tough cookie," she remarked. "Guess she must have dug herself out and gotten outta here."

_Well, now it really _is_ time for me to head home,_ Green Lantern decided, and took off in the direction of her apartment building, already looking forward to changing back into her alter ego and enjoying a hot shower, followed by a cold beer.

* * *

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Wonder Girl was returning to the dingy apartment she called home. Living in an old, broken-down building did have one advantage, she mused dryly as she flew up to her window. Because the place couldn't retract into the Geofront during attacks, she didn't have to wait until the city transformed back into its peacetime configuration before she could return to her domicile.

Stepping inside her window, the Amazon was not entirely surprised to find an exceptionally tall woman in Greek battle armor waiting inside her apartment for her.

"Are you all right, Wonder Girl?" Athena, the goddess of wisdom and the Olympian who had charged her with the task of preventing Third Impact asked her.

The blue haired superwoman rotated her shoulder experimentally. She was tired and sore from the multiple explosions she'd been at the heart of this day, not to mention having the remains of the giant weapons turret collapse on her after she'd blown it up, but her magically enhanced body could take far more punishment than that without sustaining any type of permanent injury.

"A shower and sleep are all I require," Wonder Girl answered.

"Good," Athena said. "I am glad you are well. I will leave you to rest now."

"Wait," Wonder Girl said softly. "When you informed me of Legion and advised me to join the battle against it, you told me that doing so would 'ease my conscience.' I still do not understand that."

Athena favored her with a small smile. "You will someday," she said, then left the apartment.

Wonder Girl heaved a very un-Rei-like sigh as she headed for her bathroom to peel off her costume and have a shower.

Trust the gods to be enigmatic.

* * *

That evening, the Katsuragi apartment was unusually quiet. Asuka, who had apparently dropped off the face of the earth until dinner time had rolled around, was strangely pensive and mostly silent. As Shinji had never been a big talker, that left Misato to pick up the slack. The purple haired woman tried, but her heart simply wasn't in it; her mind was too preoccupied with Legion and the implications of the damn thing's appearance to make small talk.

_There's no question that the thing was built with me in mind,_ she thought darkly. _Nobody would paint a thing like that yellow from head to toe, otherwise. Never mind the yellow tips on those missiles and bullets, but was it also made to fight the other superwomen, too?_

Though she had less evidence for this idea, she thought it had been. She had noticed how Legion had switched tactics when it was fighting Wonder Girl, suddenly unleashing that big storm of missiles (or, as she liked to think of it, "using more gun"). It hadn't busted out that trick of electrifying its chassis until the Amazon had lassoed it, either. The progressive knives also hadn't made an appearance until Wonder Girl had appeared.

_And Legion only ever used that positron rifle it had once until she showed up,_ Green Lantern thought. _I wonder if it had a whole different set of tricks up its sleeve in case Power Girl made an appearance, too?_

Well, there was no way for her to find that out now; the suit of power armor had been reduced to ash, along with a big chunk of the city.

But she was going to ask Ritsuko about this tomorrow. Oh yes, she was.

_Not liking the superwomen is one thing, actually trying to kill us is another entirely,_ Misato thought.

Growing tired of stewing over these grim ideas and thoughts, not to mention the silence that had enveloped her apartment by this point, Misato finally got up from the couch.

"I'm going to bed," she announced. "I'm beat."

"Yeah, I think I'll turn in, too," Asuka agreed.

"But it's only eight-thirty," a surprised Shinji said with a frown.

"You can stay up if you like, Shinji-kun," Misato said with a smile. "In fact, with Asuka in bed, you can actually hold the remote and watch what _you_ like to watch."

The redhead threw her guardian a dirty look but didn't say anything. At just about any other time, Misato would have wondered why not.

"Okay," Shinji said with a shrug. "Good night."

"Good night, Shinji-kun," Misato said as she and Asuka headed for their respective bedrooms.

* * *

"The damage done today was very extensive," Ritsuko said as she and Gendo walked through the dark halls of NERV.

"Naturally," Gendo replied curtly.

"The press is already starting to speculate about where Legion came from, and almost all of them are guessing it came from here," she said. "The government isn't happy, and I'm certain that the Committee isn't, either."

"I already have plans in place to deal with them," Gendo said.

Ritsuko resisted the urge to grind her teeth in frustration. A part of her had been nothing short of giddy upon realizing that one of Gendo's schemes had _finally_ blown up spectacularly right in her face, but his perfectly calm response to it was draining all the pleasure out of the experience.

"It seems that we underestimated the superwomen, sir," Ritsuko said. "If not for the presence of the Angel, it now seems unlikely that any one of them would have had any real difficulty neutralizing the suit, not even Green Lantern."

"Indeed," Gendo said. "Any measures we attempt against them in the future will need to be far more potent."

"Yes, well…" Ritsuko trailed off, unable to come up with any other bad news that might get a rise out of him.

"Good evening, Doctor," Gendo said as they reached the door to his office. "As you've pointed out, I've got quite a mess to clean up."

"Right, good evening, sir," Ritsuko said.

Gendo disappeared into his office, leaving her alone in the hall. She sighed and walked off, heading back to her lab.

* * *

Back at the Katsuragi apartment, Shinji sat on the couch with his feet on the coffee table, bathed in the bluish glow of light from the television. Pen-Pen, who sat at his side, was watching the screen raptly, but the Third Child just couldn't focus on the show.

One moment from that day kept replaying in his head, over and over.

_"Shinji-kun! Are you all right?!"_

He could still remember Green Lantern saying that to him, and could still see the concern etched on her pretty, masked face as she did so.

_"Shinji-kun! Are you all right?!"_

It had been awfully strange of her to use the "-kun" honorific when she addressed him, considering that they had only met once before, when those crazy robbers had decided to hold up that mini-golf course.

But had they only met once? Shinji was starting to wonder. Green Lantern's voice had sounded too deep when she'd said that to him, but he'd be damned if she hadn't still sounded a lot like Misato anyway. Not to mention that this evening, he'd noticed her moving rather stiffly, and she'd gone to bed very early, claiming tiredness when this had been her day off.

"What do you think, boy?" Shinji quietly asked Pen-Pen. "Does your mistress secretly a lead a second life as a superwoman?"

The penguin just let out an annoyed "wark!" clearly wanting Shinji to keep quiet, at least until a commercial.

_"Shinji-kun! Are you all right?!"_

The problem was, he wasn't even completely certain that Green Lantern actually _had_ said that exactly. When she'd first spoken to him, it had been mere moments after the car he'd been in had spun end over end at least a dozen times in the span of about three seconds. His brains had been a little scrambled at the time. And yet…

_"Shinji-kun! Are you all right?!"_

It seemed ludicrous to consider, but was it possible that he was living under the same roof as a superwoman and didn't even know it?

His lips quirked upwards in front of a tiny smirk. _For all I know, I could be _surrounded_ by superwomen,_ he thought. _Maybe I see them everyday and just never have a clue about it._

The idea that he might regularly encounter the superhuman women in the city who had redefined the term "girl power" and yet never even suspect it made him chuckle softly.

"It's a pretty silly thought, isn't it, Pen-Pen?" he asked, getting another annoyed squawk in response, this one louder than the one previous.

"All right, all right," Shinji said, "I'll be quiet."

Trying again to put his attention on the show, he couldn't help but wonder how exactly Pen-Pen had managed to wrest the remote control from him, and how the bird had known that "March of the Penguins" was on that evening.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** When I first started writing this, I really wasn't sure that I could turn Misato vs. Legion into a chapter length piece. Then when it was done, it was just over thirty pages in length, single spaced. Go figure.

A couple of important plot points are sprinkled around here and there, but for the most part this chapter's just action. Since Asuka got to feature so heavily a couple of chapters ago, I thought I'd let Rei make an appearance here.

And…that's about it. Thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.

Now for some fun!

* * *

Omakes!

Asuka's Strange Idea

"You know what I hate?" the Second Child asked one afternoon as she and Rei were getting changed in their locker room.

"Knowing your personality, I believe it would take far less time to list the things you do not hate," Rei replied in a perfect deadpan tone.

"Shut up!" Asuka snapped, then resumed what she'd been saying. "I've decided I really hate miniature golf."

Rei frowned slightly. "Why?" she asked, curious despite herself.

"Because it's so damned miniature, that's why!" Asuka proclaimed.

"…all right," Rei said, then went back to the task of dressing.

Then Asuka snapped her fingers. "Hey! I have an idea!"

Rei sighed softly.

* * *

Green Lantern looked up, and her eyes widened as she saw that Shinji's pursuer was indeed a robot. The damn thing was huge, and it was flying through the air, propelled by a pair of jets in its feet.

And it was totally, completely _yellow_.

A beam of emerald light shot out of her ring and formed a sphere of jade energy around the Third Child. "This'll take you to safety," she said.

"Wait!" Shinji exclaimed, but the robot didn't give him a chance to argue. A machine gun popped out of its forearm and it started firing at the ground near them.

She sent the sphere holding Shinji flying on a roundabout route back to NERV, then flew away from the spray of bullets just before they came raining down on the street where she'd been standing a second ago.

* * *

As Units Zero and Two tromped out around the edge of the city, Rei couldn't help but feel like the whole world had become rather surreal.

That Asuka had somehow convinced NERV to launch their Evangelions for this was crazy enough, but where on Earth had the redhead gotten the EVA-scale golf clubs from.

"Giant miniature golf!" Asuka shouted in a tone of pure exaltation. "Truly, I am a genius!"

"Where is the hole?" Rei asked, just wanting to get this ordeal over with.

"Remember how the Tenth Angel kept dropping pieces of itself, and it made a big crater by the coast?" Asuka asked.

"I remember," Rei said with a nod. "Where is the ball?"

Asuka opened her mouth to reply, then paused and closed it again. An exceedingly sheepish expression appeared on her face.

"You did all this and managed to forget about finding a giant golf ball," Rei stated.

"No, I did not!" Asuka replied obstinately.

"Then where is the ball?" Rei asked.

"It's…uh…" Asuka began looking around wildly, twisting Unit Two this way and that.

Just as she was about to give up, she spotted a green sphere flying through the air.

"Ah ha!" the redhead exclaimed triumphantly. "Here it is!"

Unit Two plucked the green orb right out of the air and held it up in front of Unit Zero's single eye. Neither girl heard its sole occupant let out a cry of fright. Or, for that matter, noticed there was anyone inside it at all.

"Very well," Rei said tiredly. "Let us begin."

"I go first!" Asuka said, placing the green sphere atop a telephone pole.

Unit Two gripped its golf club with both hands, getting into position to give the "ball" a good hard whack.

Inside his cocoon of green energy, Shinji was understandably freaking out.

"Asuka! Rei! I'm inside this thing!" he shouted. "Don't hit it!"

"_FOUR!"_ Asuka yelled.

* * *

(Unsexy) Late Night Encounters

It seemed ludicrous to consider, but was it possible that he was living under the same roof as a superwoman and didn't even know it?

His lips quirked upwards in front of a tiny smirk. _For all I know, I could be _surrounded_ by superwomen,_ he thought. _Maybe I see them everyday and just never have a clue about it._

The idea that he might regularly encounter the superhuman women in the city who had redefined the term "girl power" and yet never even suspect it made him chuckle softly.

"It's a pretty silly thought, isn't it, Pen-Pen?" he asked, getting another annoyed squawk in response, this one louder than the one previous.

"All right, all right," Shinji said, "I'll be quiet."

Quickly growing bored of the show, Shinji decided to get up and see what was currently inside the fridge. Rising from the sofa, he headed over to the apartment's kitchen area…and stopped dead at what he saw.

Asuka stood in front of the sink, filling a glass of water for herself. However, she was wearing Power Girl's trademark white leotard and red cape. A blond wig and red mask were held in one of her hands.

"Oh my god!" he exclaimed, pointing at her.

"Shinji?!" Asuka exclaimed, turning to look at him.

"Oh my god!" Shinji repeated. "You're Power Girl! I was right! I am living with a superwoman!"

"No, Shinji, this isn't what it looks like!" Asuka said.

"Not what it looks like?! You look _exactly_ like Power Girl in that!" Shinji said.

"Hey, you two," Misato's sleepy voice sounded from the hallway. "What's with all the yelling?"

"Misato! Asuka is…" Shinji trailed off as he got a look at his guardian.

Misato was clearly half asleep. If she hadn't been, she probably wouldn't have come out clad in her Green Lantern uniform, but without her mask and with her hair having its usual purple color.

"Both of you?!" Shinji exclaimed. "You're both superwomen, and I had no idea until now?!"

"Huh?" Misato looked down at herself. "Oh, crap. Asuka, would you?"

Shinji blinked. "Would Asuka what?"

Not answering, the redhead delivered a chop to the side of his head with her hand, instantly knocking him unconscious. With a sigh, she caught the Third Child before he crumpled to the floor.

"We really having to stop letting him catch us in costume and doing this to him," Asuka said.

"Agreed," Misato said. "Sooner or later, he's going to wake up remembering what he saw before you knocked him out."

* * *

Obligatory St. Patty's Day Omake: Alcohol, Green Women, and Calendars

Mike313 sighed tiredly to himself as he stood inside the cafeteria at NERV headquarters, hardly able to believe she'd talked him into this. He didn't much enjoy crossing over the fourth wall to begin with.

" 'It'll be fun,' she said," he grumbled darkly to himself as he nursed a plastic cup full of soda. " 'I'll be needing a designated driver afterwards,' she said. 'You practically owe it to me. _Altered Destinies_ is only so damn popular because I'm so damn awesome, and you know it,' she said. Bah!"

The author was about the only person in the large room who was grumpy, but then again, he was also about the only person there who was sober. The cafeteria was decorated with green streamers and paper shamrocks, and the beer was flowing freely that day.

Needless to say, Gendo was out of town on business.

"Hey, Mike!" Misato came staggering toward her, clearly far past the tipsy stage. "Great party, huh?"

"Yeah, great," he replied in a tone that said just the opposite.

"Hey," she frowned. "What's the matter? Why are you so ticked off?"

"I'm not ticked off," Mike lied.

"Well, you know what ticks _me_ off?" Misato asked.

"I'm sure I'm about to hear all about it."

"You know that calendar orionpax09 has been making and putting up on DeviantArt?" Misato asked.

"Yes, the one with the Superwomen of Eva on it," Mike replied.

"Yeah, that one. I saw it recently, and guess who got to be Miss March?" she asked.

"Mayumi," he replied. "Storm."

"Mayumi!" Misato exclaimed. "I mean, c'mon, what's with _that_? This whole month has only one thing going for it, and that's St. Patrick's Day! And clearly, _I_ shoulda been Miss March! Seriously, I love beer, and I'm the _Green _Lantern! Total no-brainer, but Orion has to go and pick that little Angel-hugging rain cloud! Has her dressed up as a leprechaun and everything!"

"I think he wants to use the women from the first SOE series first," Mike said in a placating tone. "Maybe next year."

"That's still no excuse!" Misato exclaimed. "If that's the case, he shoulda used She-Hulk! She loves beer at least as much as me, and she's green, too!"

"Well, okay, you may have a point there," Mike conceded.

"Hell yeah, I do!" Misato exclaimed. "I think I'm gonna go across the fourth wall right now and give him a piece of my mind!"

"And how are you going to do that? You don't have the ability to break the forth wall," Mike pointed out.

Misato smiled meaningfully at the author.

"No," he said flatly.

"Aw, you're no fun," Misato pouted. "Ya know, for some reason I felt sure I could cross the forth wall myself…"

"That's because you're drunk, and because your SOE1 counterpart can," Mike said absently.

"Oh yeah! Thanks for reminding me!" Misato said, then turned away and called. "Hey! Super buff me!"

Mike blinked stupidly as he saw the She-Hulk emerge from the crowd, holding a keg. How he had failed to notice the green giantess before was a mystery to him.

"How did she get here?" he asked.

Misato shrugged. "She heard there'd be free beer." She said as though that explained everything.

Which, Mike realized, it sort of did.

"What puny me want?" She-Hulk asked as she reached them.

"Puny?! Well maybe compared to—!" Misato seemed to rein in her temper. "Listen, Shulkie, orionpax09 made someone other than one of us the St. Patrick's Day girl!"

"That bad?"

"_Very_ bad," Misato said. "Listen, Shulkie, I need you to smash a hole in the forth wall for me so I can speak to him about fixing this."

"She-Hulk can smash!" the huge superwoman said cheerfully.

"Great!" Misato said, and suddenly a green glow consumed her form, changing her into Green Lantern. "Let's go!"

Mike, not being suicidal, didn't try to stop them as they left the cafeteria, en route to the real world. Shaking his head, he took a long drink of his soda.

"And here Orion always thought it would be some version of Asuka that came across the forth wall and killed him," the author mused.


	8. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Seven: **Consequences

The room was packed to the corners, and it was almost as full of nervous, eager energy as it was with people. Some of the occupants of the chamber, almost all of whom were journalists, were already snapping pictures, even though there was nothing more interesting to photograph than a vacant podium.

It was a waste of film, of course, but the reporters could perhaps be forgiven their excessive enthusiasm, given the circumstances.

After all, the press was never allowed into NERV headquarters, and the Commander _never_ made public statements.

But apparently, the whole debacle with "Legion" had forced the master of NERV to make an exception, just this once.

Finally, after a long wait that the reporters present would have bristled at in just about any other situation, the man himself emerged and stood before the simple, unadorned podium that had been set up in the makeshift press room. The reporters quickly hushed, and many of them pressed the record buttons on their video cameras, waiting for Gendo's statement.

"Good morning," the Commander of NERV said, "and thank you all for coming here. I'm aware that it was on short notice."

Gendo Ikari was deliberately moderating his tone, trying to stay away from the icy cold demeanor which he normally used. He still did not come off as terribly charismatic, and he knew it—which was why he usually did his best to avoid being the public face of NERV; he didn't make his grandfatherly Vice Commander perform most of those duties just because he loathed them himself. However, this was not something the number two man could do, and in any case, the press was listening raptly despite his lack of natural charm.

"Now, I'm sure all of you have heard the rumors concerning Legion," Gendo said. "The ones which state that it was created here at NERV Headquarters. I am here today to inform that those rumors are indeed true."

These were the magic words which broke the silence, and suddenly all the reporters were talking at once, firing questions at him in a rapid stream.

Gendo raised a hand for silence. "Enough," he said, not loudly, but with unmistakable authority. The crowd of journalists immediately began to grow quiet. "One at a time. We will start with you." He pointed to one of the reporters.

"Commander, I think the first question on everyone's minds is, why did NERV build such a thing in the first place?"

"The unit that dubbed itself 'Legion' was the prototype for an anti-Angel drone weapon," Gendo said. "It was meant to first supplement the Evangelions, and then, if the drones performed well enough, to replace them entirely."

"Why do you want to replace the Evangelions?" another reporter asked.

Gendo gave the man who'd spoken out of turn a cold glare, causing him to wilt visibly. However, the Commander then answered the question. "The Evangelions may be effective against Angels," he said. "However, they require an enormous amount of resources. Resources which could be spent on humanitarian projects if NERV could switch to smaller, most cost effective anti-Angel weapons. Additionally, if we were able to switch to drones, we would no longer have to place the Evangelion pilots in harm's way on a regular basis."

Several people nodded at this last bit. That the EVA pilots were, one and all, fourteen-year-old children was something of an open secret within Tokyo-3. The Japanese government had issued a strict gag order on the media, preventing them from reporting any details about the pilots' ages or identities, but of course, all the journalists present knew about them.

Gendo selected another reporter to pose a question.

"Commander Ikari, how did Legion get out of NERV's control so totally?" she asked.

"We were forced to utilize…unusual methods of construction to make the unit a viable measure against the Angels. Methods similar to what makes the Evangelions themselves effective against the Angels," Gendo said. "Unfortunately, despite the best efforts on the part of the world's best and brightest, this technology is still not fully understood. Attempting to apply it in a new way caused the unit to slip from our control."

"Isn't it irresponsible to utilize technology we don't fully understand?"

"Humankind was utilizing electricity to light our homes before all the principles of it were fully understood," Gendo replied. "People died so others wouldn't need to use candles to illuminate their homes. Today, it is our very civilization at stake."

"Mr. Ikari, do you have any comment to make on the 'superwomen' who have been spotted in the city recently?" another reporter asked. "Especially considering that two of them stopped the renegade Legion?"

"The so-called 'superwomen' are loose cannons who will not be tolerated by this organization," Gendo said. "NERV was about to deploy an Evangelion to stop the rogue anti-Angel unit when they arrived and annihilated the prototype weapon. So far as this organization is concerned, they are all guilty of vigilantism. Additionally, Green Lantern and Wonder Girl are guilty of destroying NERV property."

"Sir, is there anything you'd like to say to the families of those who were killed or maimed by Legion?"

"Yes," Gendo said. "NERV is sorry for your loss. And though I know that it cannot truly compensate, this organization will pay five million yen to the families of all the deceased. The medical bills of the injured will also be covered by NERV."

"Commander," the next reporter chosen asked. "How can the public trust NERV when it develops weapons like Legion completely in secret, and then loses control of it entirely? Shouldn't there be greater transparency in your organization?"

"How can the public trust NERV?" Gendo echoed. "That is simple: the public _must_ trust NERV. We are the only organization that has proven itself effective against the Angels. If NERV is disbanded, or if we weaken this organization by letting the public's idle curiosity trump the need for military secrecy, all of humanity could _die_."

A hush fell over the crowd, and a few people shuddered at the thought of humanity's annihilation.

"This press conference is over," Gendo announced, seizing upon the moment of silence. "Base security will escort you all out. Good day, everyone."

And with that, the Commander of NERV left the room the way he had come, finding Fuyutski waiting for him.

"I think I'll keep serving as NERV's public face most of the time," the old professor said.

"By all means," Gendo replied. "I have no desire to make this a regular event."

"Thank goodness for that," Fuyutski said. "Did you have to be so blunt? This 'we're all going to die if you don't trust us' isn't going to win us any popularity."

"I'm not concerned with popularity. I'm concerned with keeping the public in line," Gendo replied.

"Is there something wrong with your eyes?" Fuyutski asked.

Gendo blinked at the abrupt change of topic. "No," he answered, and then took off his glasses to afford the older man an unobstructed view of them.

"Hmm, the color of them seemed wrong for a moment," Fuyutski said, then waved the matter off. "Anyway, Gendo, cowing the public is one thing, but what about the old men? They won't be so easily fooled."

"I've already spoken to them," Gendo said. "I strongly implied that we could create another 'Legion' if we wanted. Even out of control, it was a formidable weapon. That should keep the old men too wary to act for some time."

"It might keep them too wary to act _directly_," Fuyutski countered. "Don't forget that they still control the purse strings."

"I have just boxed them into a corner," Gendo said. "If they attempt to slash our funding, it will be seen as them curtailing our attempts to get the Children out of combat, and stopping our reimbursement of Legion's victims."

Fuyutski could only sigh as he followed Gendo toward the younger man's cavernous office.

* * *

Nobu had not signed up for this crap.

The job was supposed to have been a simple smash-and-grab. They break the front window of the pharmacy, get inside, rapidly grab all the expensive prescription drugs from the back that they could in under two minutes, and be out before the police could respond to the alarm they had no doubt set off.

They'd known that one of the superwomen showing up was a possibility; in Tokyo-3, it always was, but they were smart (or so they'd thought). They'd paid attention to the patterns of the superwomen to minimize the chance of running into one of them.

It wasn't that hard to figure them out if you just paid attention. Power Girl enjoyed flashy rescues, such as saving people from burning buildings or saving someone falling to his doom. If there wasn't a big crowd around to see her, she probably wouldn't show, and she rarely appeared at night at all.

Wonder Girl was a little harder to predict, but she also tended to stick to daylight hours. Additionally, the blue haired superwoman usually focused her efforts on the slums, which was why Nobu and his associates had picked a place in the better part of the city.

And of course, Green Lantern, though known to have killed at least one Angel single-handedly, appeared most rarely of the three by far. Nobu and his friends hadn't been worried about her at all.

Which was what made the emerald superwoman's appearance in the middle of the heist all the more painful. One moment, they were all frantically cramming pills into the bags they'd bought with them, well aware of how little time they had before the police arrived, and the next, the dark pharmacy had been filled with green light. It was right about then that they'd known they were in trouble.

One of the guys had pulled a gun and actually shot at the Green Lantern, totally failing to consider the heat it would invoke if they killed one of the city's heroes. Fortunately, the bullets had bounced harmlessly off the Green Lantern's glowing force field, but that didn't do anything to help them escape.

Most of them had been caught right in the drug store, despite the way they'd scattered, all of them instantly coming to the unspoken agreement that it was suddenly every man for himself. Green Lantern had managed to conjure a bunch of cages made from green light, trapping most of the guys right then and there.

If the luminous superwoman possessed the super speed of either of her contemporaries, they _all_ would have been captured as they tried to flee from the store. However, she had proved unable to chase them all at once, so Nobu had been one of the lucky few that had managed to escape.

Now the only question was, had he lost her, or was she just taking her sweet time in rounding them all up?

Having gotten four blocks away from the pharmacy, and having run at a full sprint the whole distance, Nobu finally allowed himself to slow to a stop, bracing his hands on his thighs and panting heavily.

_Don't think I ever ran so hard before,_ he thought. _Did I lose her, at least?_

He looked around, and everything seemed dark and quiet. He hadn't run away from the scene of the crime in a straight line, but had instead zigged and zagged through the city, only paying enough attention to his course to ensure that he didn't accidentally loop back. _He_ didn't know where he was, so it seemed possible that the emerald superwoman didn't, either.

Then he saw the dark streets illuminated by an emerald glow, and he knew that he wasn't out of the woods yet.

Fatigue forgotten completely, Nobu dashed into a nearby alleyway, which he quickly discovered was a dead end. Cursing softly, he rapidly turned his head left and right, searching for any potential for escape. He found it in the form of an old fire escape that was connected to one of the buildings.

_Guess it'll have to do,_ he thought, rushing over to it.

The ladder was raised, but not enough that Nobu wasn't able to jump up and pull it down. He winced at the loud noise it made but didn't hesitate to scramble up. After a few moments of frantic climbing, Nobu found himself on the roof. There was no green light anywhere that he could see, but his nerves were frayed and his adrenaline was pumping. The young thief searched for some way to put yet more distance between himself and the superwoman.

Unfortunately, there was one only obvious way of getting anywhere from his current position without backtracking, and Nobu was feeling just crazy enough to try it. The young man broke out into a sprint, heading straight for the edge of the roof. Stifling the cry that wanted to burst out of his throat, he leapt off the side of the building, landing hard on the roof of the adjacent structure. Nobu stumbled and fell immediately afterwards, but he'd done it, he'd made it.

Emboldened by his success, Nobu leapt to his feet and took off running once more. Soon he had leapt to the roof of another building, and then another.

It was the leap after this where he had a problem.

By this point, Nobu had become overconfident in his rooftop jumping skills, and he had neglected to really take a good look at the gap between the building he was on and the next.

He had literally failed to look before he'd leapt, and only as he started running out of momentum well before reaching the next building did he realize just how foolish he'd been.

"Oh, crap!" he shouted as gravity laid claim to him in earnest.

He really hadn't expected to have to deal with Green Lantern, but he'd anticipated breaking both of his legs even less. Nobu covered his eyes with his hands like a child, unable to believe how disastrous the night had become.

Then he landed on something far softer than concrete, yet far less smelly than a pile of trash bags, and unless his sense of how far he'd fallen was shot (admittedly, not impossible), he was still a decent distance from the ground.

Trembling, Nobu moved his hands away from his eyes. He almost wasn't surprised at what he saw.

The young thief was sitting in the grip of a giant baseball glove, which was made out of emerald light. The Green Lantern hovered nearby, a thin stream of illumination connecting the oversized piece of sports equipment to her ring.

Nobu just sighed. "I'm going to jail now, aren't I?"

Green Lantern smirked. "Yup," she said cheerfully, "but at least you're not hurt."

* * *

After dropping all the would-be thieves off at the police station, Green Lantern headed back toward her home, deciding that she really had to get some sleep; she hadn't intended to be out so late, but time had just gotten away from her.

She'd discovered that she really enjoyed using her ring to help people when she'd gone out "superheroing" before Legion had made his appearance. It made her realize that she liked getting her own hands dirty; she had been sitting in the command center, directing battles from afar for much too long. It was time for her to get back to the front line, and not just in the war against the Angels.

But now it was time for bed. Even with her new position, she couldn't make a habit of sleeping until noon, much as she would have liked to.

"Ring, go dim."

_"Force field operating at five percent,"_ the ring responded, and the aura of emerald light around her grew fainter until it was nearly invisible.

Approaching her apartment building, Green Lantern circled the premises a few times, noting Section Two's location and that they, as usual, weren't paying very much attention to the task of guarding the premises.

Satisfied that she didn't have to take any elaborate measures to avoid detection, Green Lantern flew over to her bedroom window and opened it, quickly entering her home. Once safely in her room, she silently commanded her ring to remove her costume. Immediately, her Green Lantern uniform disappeared in a brief puff of emerald flame, and she was back in her regular clothing.

Misato was strongly tempted to just take her ring off and go to bed, but if there was anything her experiences in the military had taught her, it was that a soldier who neglected to maintain her weapon was inviting disaster.

_At least I don't have to disassemble it and clean it,_ she thought.

"Ring, power check," she said.

_"Power levels 21 percent."_

"Less than a quarter. Obviously, it's time for a recharge," Misato muttered to herself, opening her cluttered closet and retrieving the power battery hidden there. Holding her ring up to it, she spoke in hushed tones. "In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might, beware my power…Green Lantern's light!"

There was the now familiar flare of emerald light from her power battery, which quickly died out, and her ring reported, _"Power levels 100 percent."_

Satisfied, Misato removed the ring and put it into its customary hiding place, then quickly changed into her pajamas and got into bed, not looking forward to the next morning.

* * *

Shinji was just getting a drink of water from the kitchen when it happened. He was heading back to his own room with the glass, just passing by Misato's bedroom, certainly not expecting anything to happen during the brief trek.

And then he noticed the green light in the hallway that should have been dark.

Sleepy, the Third Child didn't immediately put all the pieces together in his head. Once he did, however, his gaze quickly began to dart around, searching for the source of the light.

He found it just an instant before the light winked out. All of it seemed to be streaming out from under the bottom of the door to Misato's bedroom.

And then it was gone. If he had blinked, he would have missed it.

For a moment, the Third Child was tempted, oh so tempted, to barge into Misato's room, feeling almost certain that he would find Green Lantern there.

Yet he hesitated, only too aware of how foolish he would look if he burst in and found only his guardian there, wondering what he was doing.

And as the seconds ticked by, Shinji became less confident of what he'd seen. Really, he'd only gotten a glance at the light coming from the crack beneath Misato's bedroom door. His eyes could have been playing tricks on him; the green glow might have been coming from somewhere else, even if he wasn't exactly sure where that "somewhere else" might be.

_And really, _Misato_ as the Green Lantern?_ He thought. _Okay, I might've considered it before, but really…_

It sounded a little silly when he put it like that.

Finally, his courage failed him entirely, and he resumed his course for his own bedroom. The Third Child told himself that he was simply ludicrous to even consider such a thing as he drank his water and then settled down into his bed.

Yet as he slept that night, his dreams were strangely full of his guardian, who was always surrounded by green light.

* * *

As Misato had expected the previous night, she was _not_ exactly bright eyed and bushy tailed when her alarm clock went off the next morning. Thanks to her "extracurricular activities" the previous evening, she had gotten far less sleep than she would have liked.

Knowing that she really shouldn't but unable to resist, she brought her fist down on her alarm clock, hitting the snooze button with far more violence than was necessary or recommended.

Unfortunately for her, the early morning sunshine was streaming in through her window and directly onto her face. Thanks to the bright light, the purple haired woman was unable to get back to sleep, despite her fatigue.

Finally surrendering with a groan, Misato sat up and turned her alarm clock off, rubbing at her eyes.

"Damn sun," she grumbled as she climbed out of bed and retrieved her ring, putting it on. "You better be glad you're yellow, because otherwise, I'd be _really _tempted to blow you up right now."

Misato let out a massive yawn as she stumbled out of her bedroom and toward the bathroom. Under ordinary circumstances, the purple haired woman would have headed straight to the kitchen for a can of her favorite liquid wakeup call, better known as Yeibisu.

However, when she was sleep deprived, her wires sometimes got crossed, and she'd perform her morning routine out of order. So, she started brushing her teeth first.

At first, the task was the very portrait of the mundane. Misato moved the brush back and forth without thinking about it and gazed at herself in the bathroom mirror with dull, sleepy eyes.

Then, her tooth brushing gradually slowed, eventually stopping, as she focused more and more of her attention on her reflection.

There was something different about her.

Absently spitting her toothpaste into the sink, the purple haired woman leaned close to the mirror, her weariness rapidly vanishing as she became more and more certain that this was _not_ her imagination.

She noticed not long ago that she was starting to develop some tiny wrinkles by her eyes. Nothing drastic, but enough to let her know that, yes, she really was nearing the big "three-oh."

But this morning, they were nowhere to be found.

"What the hell?" She whispered.

Suddenly, those compliments she'd gotten on days when she'd felt like crap and believed that she'd looked like it as well started to make a lot more sense.

Misato just stood there for several moments, staring at her reflection. Then, on a hunch, she put down her toothbrush and stripped off her pajamas, leaving herself standing before the mirror in just her panties, and, of course, her ring.

Close inspection immediately revealed the changes that casual glances had not. Her waist and hips were a bit slimmer than they'd been months before, and her bust was higher and firmer; the very slight but very distressing sag her impressive breasts had started to develop in recent years was gone, replaced by the proud defiance of gravity she had flaunted shamelessly while she was in college. A quick look behind her showed that her posterior was a bit smaller and tighter than she recalled as well.

She'd doubtlessly been getting more exercise since she'd become the Green Lantern, but it wasn't enough to account for all this. Also, exercise wouldn't explain the changes to her face.

"Ring, what's happened to me?" she asked.

_"You have been physically regressed to a younger age by this ring," _it answered, as if there was nothing remarkable about that at all.

"You did this?" she hissed softly. "Why?"

_"You commanded this ring to do so, Lantern,"_ it stated.

"What? No, I…"

She trailed off as she remembered exactly what Abin Sur had told her the power he'd passed to her could do.

"The power ring is fueled by the wielder's willpower. It can make your thoughts and wishes a reality," he had said.

Thoughts _and_ wishes.

How many times had she wished, while wearing the ring, that the age gap between her and Shinji was smaller? That she wasn't too old for him?

Probably too many times to count, but she never thought for a moment that her power ring would decide to _grant_ her wish, or even that it _could._

For several moments, Misato was consumed with panic, wondering how she was going to reverse this, and even more daunting, how she was going to _explain _it.

She forced herself to calm down, however, and tried to look at the situation more rationally. The more she turned it over in her mind, the better everything seemed to be.

The ring was de-aging her so gradually that not even she had noticed it until now, so there was no immediate need for her to change herself back. Indeed, ordering the ring to immediately revert her to the way she'd been before her encounter with Abin Sur was by far the most risky course of action. If she abruptly looked almost thirty again, people would no doubt notice.

_Maybe I don't even have to reverse it _at all, she thought. _It _probably _counts as using the ring for personal gain, but I didn't even know I was doing it until now. Besides, it's not like those Guardians of the Universe that Abin mentioned have shown up to yell at me. Hell, they haven't tugged on my leash at all yet._

"Ring, physically, how old am I?" she asked.

_"Twenty-three terrestrial years old,"_ the ring answered. _"Should this ring cease your physical regression?"_

Twenty-three. She was already six years younger. Back in her early twenties.

"…no, not quite yet," Misato said.

She couldn't make herself Shinji's age, even though part of her was tempted to do just that. People would notice if she started getting shorter no matter how slowly it happened, and besides, she didn't _want_ to be a teenager again.

Her adolescent years had been less than pleasant.

Still, a little more, and the age gap between herself and Shinji would become decidedly less than insurmountable. She could deal with being older than him, so long as she wasn't _that_ much older than him.

Smiling, Misato put her pajamas back on, rinsed the remaining toothpaste from her mouth with some water, and left to begin her day.

* * *

Shinji Ikari didn't like sync tests much. Of course, it was really impossible to enjoy sync tests, considering that they tended to consist of sitting in a breathable liquid that smelled like blood and thinking at the machine for two hours.

Of course, Asuka was generally pretty enthusiastic about them, if only because the tests afforded her the opportunity to flaunt her superior scores. And Rei was always completely stoic about the unpleasant duty. So, in the end, Shinji often felt like he was the only one who was dragging his feet as he went into the big metal tube.

Yet that day, the test was proceeding so smoothly that he almost didn't mind it. He didn't know why that was; perhaps he was just having a good day, or maybe it was because he felt less pressured to do well in EVA ever since Green Lantern had slain the Tenth Angel all by herself. Whatever the reason, it was like something had clicked into place, making the process of synching feel almost effortless.

So when the test was concluding, Shinji couldn't resist asking how his scores were.

"You did great today, Shinji-kun!" Misato answered brightly, before any of the technicians or Dr. Akagi could chime in. "In fact, you're number one this week!"

"Really?" he asked, barely daring to believe it.

"Yup!"

Over in her entry plug, Asuka was releasing a string of invectives and unpleasant oaths, but with Misato beaming at him and looking especially appealing that fine morning for some reason, he found that for once he simply didn't care that he'd invoked the wrath of the redheaded pilot.

Dr. Akagi and the techs retook control of the proceedings at that point and professionally ran through the few, mercifully brief post-test protocols. A few minutes later, the pilots were released, and the Third Child cheerfully made his way to his locker room, where he quickly showered and changed back into his regular clothes.

He was pleasantly surprised to find Misato waiting outside for him when he emerged.

"Oh, hi, Misato," he said.

"Hi, yourself, Mr. Number One," his guardian greeted him.

She was still wearing that bright, proud grin, which made him feel simultaneously embarrassed and pleased with himself even as it also caused his heartbeat to rapidly accelerate.

"Um, hi," he said again, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

Misato's smile morphed into an amused smirk, which was something of a relief to Shinji; it was suddenly easier for him to think straight.

Slightly.

"So, uh, what brings you here, Misato?" he asked. "Don't you have work to do, or something?"

Misato's smirk widened. "Well, since I've become just a lowly tactical consultant, my workload's decreased a lot," she said. "I can even knock off work early every now and again if I want to. So I was thinking that I could take the new number one pilot out to an early dinner somewhere."

"Really?"

"Yeah, sure! Come on!" Misato said, gesturing for Shinji to accompany her.

The Third Child happily fell in step next to her, and the two of them headed for the exit to the base.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the female pilots' locker room, Asuka had heard the entire exchange thanks to her superhuman hearing. The Second Child felt resentment building up inside of her.

_She_ had been at the top of the syncho charts for months—_years_, if you counted the period before the war had started, before the arrival of the Third Angel and the Third Child. And nobody had ever made a fuss like this over _her_. The injustice made her seethe with rage.

_Not fair,_ she thought petulantly.

The redhead's mind was still in turmoil; she had ventured to Germany not long ago to investigate the reason behind her superhuman abilities. The trip had been illuminating, to say the least, and Asuka was no longer sure what she should do with her unique abilities.

She felt an irrational but nevertheless potent bitterness toward Misato for fawning over the Third Child and pissing her off like this when she already had so much crap to deal with.

_Damn it, the only reason that idiot scored higher than me was because I was distracted!_ She thought, still fuming.

Next to her, the First Child had finished changing. She regarded Asuka, who hadn't even started removing her plug suit. The redhead was just standing before her locker and glaring at it angrily.

"Pilot Soryu," Rei spoke up.

Asuka's response was immediate and wordless. The Second Child suddenly let out an angry cry and punched her locker. She nearly hit it with every bit of strength she had but restrained herself at the last moment, the impact "only" leaving a very large dent in her locker door instead.

With a "hmph" Asuka very quickly changed clothes then stormed out of the locker room, leaving Rei standing there with a blank expression.

The First Child blinked a few times at the door Asuka had just used to depart. The Second had always been rather… volatile, but that was definitely a new level of intensity.

Finally, the blue haired girl decided that Asuka wasn't her responsibility. Walking over to the severely damaged locker, she carefully bent the door back into shape. It wasn't exactly pristine when she was done, but it would at least close again.

With a tiny nod of satisfaction, Rei turned and departed from the locker room.

* * *

"Sorry we can't do anything nicer, Shinji-kun," Misato said, "but my pay's just as pathetic as ever."

Looking up from his bowl, Shinji smiled. The noodle house where he and his guardian had ended up seemed perfectly nice to him. Of course, he had rarely gone out to restaurants; his old guardian had preferred to stay home and get his ward to cook for him. And while Shinji sometimes went to grab something to eat with Toji and Kensuke, they naturally frequented cheap places, being teenagers with little money.

Still, there was nothing wrong with where they were, and he told Misato as much.

She smiled. "I would have liked to take you out for steaks to celebrate."

He blinked. "Oh, it's really not that big of a deal," he said.

"Not that big of a deal?" she repeated, deliberately sounding more incredulous than she felt at Shinji's modesty. "Shinji-kun, I don't think you realize just how far you've come." She said with a coy smile.

"What?" he asked, confused. "What do you mean?"

"Well, think about it," she said. "When you first came here, we pretty much had to force you into EVA. If your father hadn't brought out Rei, you wouldn't have fought, and the Angel would have rampaged all over the city."

"Yeah," Shinji said in a low voice, looking down into his bowl of noodles.

"But since then you've really grown up," Misato continued quickly. "I've watched you come into yourself and become someone we can depend on when the Angels come calling."

He blinked and looked up at her. "Really?"

"Of course," Misato said. "Shinji-kun, not only do you have the highest sync ratio now, but you've also got the highest number of kills. That's especially remarkable, considering that you didn't have years of training like Asuka or Rei."

Shinji blushed and turned away, embarrassed by the praise, but also taking an undeniable level of pleasure in it. "Stop," he said weakly. "You're… exaggerating."

"I am not," Misato replied. "Really, Shinji, you're turning out to be the big hero of the EVA pilots."

The Third Child couldn't think of any possible response to this, and he probably wouldn't have been able to deliver it even if he had, so he simply remained quiet. Fortunately, they had both just about finished, so the silence was not allowed to stretch out long enough to become awkward.

Once Misato had paid the bill, the two of them strode out onto the street. The sun was starting to set, but it was still pleasantly warm outside, and the whole city was awash in orange-gold light.

In a display that went against Japanese cultural norms, Misato latched onto Shinji's arm once they were on the sidewalk. The position was a little awkward due to her greater height, and the unexpected closeness caused the EVA pilot to briefly tense up. However, Misato managed well enough, and he quickly relaxed, accepting the position. The two began to walk toward their home at a leisurely pace.

The purple haired woman blithely ignored the disapproving looks given to them by the people they passed by. Shinji, however, quickly began to wither beneath their gazes.

He might have broken away from her if Misato's next words hadn't thoroughly distracted him.

"Shinji-kun, have you been working out?" she asked, giving his arm a gentle squeeze.

"Huh?" he asked, then blushed as the words registered in his head. "Oh, um, a little, I guess. Asuka's been going to the gym at the base a lot lately, and sometimes she makes me come along to spot her. Since I'm there anyway, it just seems silly not to work out myself between her sets."

"Hmm, you know, normally I don't like it when she bosses you around, but I think I might have to make an exception with this one," Misato cooed, again squeezing his biceps, which, Shinji felt completely sure, had not significantly increased in size as a result of his workouts.

"You know, you're unusually…" Shinji paused, trying to come up with the right word. "Cheerful."

An older, more experienced man would have said "flirtatious" but that term never crossed Shinji's mind, despite being rather apt.

"I guess I've just been in a good mood since I left the Ops Director post," Misato said. "Besides, why shouldn't I be cheerful? I'm on the big hero's arm."

Shinji blushed fiercely at this. "Um, it's nice out today," he blurted out in a rather lame attempt at changing the topic of the conversation.

Misato smirked, seeing right through the painfully obvious ploy, but let herself be directed away from the present topic. "Yeah," she agreed. "It's too bad we can't see the sunset with all these buildings in the way. I'll bet it's really beautiful. Just like the day I took you to that observation platform. Remember that?"

"How could I forget?"

Misato smiled. "We should go up there again sometime."

"I could pack lunch," Shinji offered, warming to the idea immediately. "We could have a picnic."

"I'd like that," Misato said.

And so they walked home, blissfully unaware of the events that were just around the corner.

* * *

For all her workaholic tendencies, Ritsuko Akagi was a woman who sometimes put off things that she knew she probably should have handled as soon as possible. While she had never shied away from hard labor, confrontations and emotional situations were another matter entirely.

Which was why she'd made a point of avoiding Misato ever since the whole 'Legion' incident, and why she felt like a deer caught in the headlights upon bumping into her old friend in the halls of the base one day.

"Hello, Ritsuko," Misato greeted the bottle blonde, her tone cheerful but a dangerous glint shining in her eyes.

Ritsuko resisted the urge to swallow. "Hi, Misato."

"It's good to see you," Misato said, approaching her friend. "I haven't even gotten to exchange a 'hello' with you for days."

The scientist backed up as the tactical consultant pushed into her personal space. However, this somehow resulted in her getting caught between the wall and the purple haired woman.

"So, tell me about 'Legion', Rits," Misato asked.

"What's to tell?" Ritsuko asked, trying to sound innocent. "I thought the Commander covered everything pretty well at the press conference."

Misato snorted. "Don't give me that," she said. "We both know he wasn't telling the whole truth. If that thing was really meant just for the Angels, it wouldn't have been such a secret that almost nobody here knew about it until it started tearing through the base."

Now Ritsuko did swallow, her eyes darting to the left and right as she searched in vain for some means of escape.

"That thing was meant to fight the superwomen, wasn't it?" Misato demanded.

The scientist's eyes widened. Not drastically, but Ritsuko felt sure that the former Ops Director had noticed. "Yes," she confessed.

"Why?" Misato asked. "I get that NERV was a little ticked off about being shown up with the Tenth Angel, but isn't this taking it too far?"

"Misato, think about this for a second," Ritsuko pleaded. "The superwomen have an inordinate amount of power and answer to no one but themselves. We can't let people like that run around in Tokyo-3 without having some kind of contingency to deal with them in case they turn on us."

"But all they've done so far is _help_!" Misato hissed. "NERV is hard up enough for money as it is. Hell, we can't install half the upgrades that we want into the Evangelions because of lack of funds, and now we're expending resources on anti-superwomen weapons?"

"Misato," Ritsuko said, "did you know that when Legion started tearing through the base, everybody thought that it was either an Angel or a rogue superwoman, because nothing else would be able to pull that off?"

Misato was taken aback by this knowledge, much to Ritsuko's relief. However, the purple haired woman quickly seemed to rally and opened her mouth to speak again.

The Angel alarm cut her off, much to Ritsuko's relief.

_Saved by the bell,_ the scientist thought.

Kaji burst into the hallway a moment later, in too much of a rush to notice that Misato had Ritsuko pinned between herself and the wall.

"Come on, you two," he said as he continued toward the command center.

They complied, Misato only reluctantly.

* * *

A shadow had fallen over the city of Tokyo-3, a shadow that wasn't natural, accompanied by a huge, floating sphere of black and white that was equally unnatural.

What was really strange was that the shadow had, bizarrely, preceded the sphere. However, it had done so by only a few small slivers of a second; they had appeared closely enough together that no human eye could have realized the dissidence.

The MAGI noticed, of course, but for all their processing power, at the end of the day, they were still computers. The trio of artificial intelligences merely filed the information away, unable to draw a conclusion from it. They did not bother to inform their human co-workers about the scrap of data.

"All personnel, go to first-stage alert," Kaji commanded. "Launch all three Evangelions!"

Deep inside NERV, a trio of electromagnetic catapults all activated, sending the organization's three Evangelion Units rocketing toward the surface, where they emerged at three separate locations.

Observing the battle from the command center, Misato bit her lower lip nervously. This new "zebra ball" Angel looked harmless enough, but so had the Fifth, and that one had damn near killed Shinji the moment Unit One had arrived on the field of battle.

This time, however, the Angel gave no sign that it was aware of the presence of the Evangelions on the surface; it just continued to float lazily through the city.

Misato released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, then cursed silently.

_Damn it._ _I should be out there as Green Lantern, not watching this in here. If only he hadn't caught me speaking with Ritsuko and ordered me to follow him,_ she thought, turning her gaze to glare at Kaji's back.

With him being her superior officer now, it wasn't exactly like she could refuse the command. All she could do was hope that the Children could handle this Angel on their own.

"Kaji," Ritsuko spoke up, "the MAGI are detecting an orange pattern, not a blue one. They won't officially designate this phenomenon as the Twelfth Angel yet."

"Ritsuko, what else besides an Angel could it be?" Kaji asked, turning to look at her.

Recognizing the question as a rhetorical one, the scientist kept silent. The new Operations Director turned back to the main viewer. "All right," he addressed the pilots. "It doesn't look like the Angel's realized you're there yet, so approach with as much stealth as possible but be ready to engage at a moment's notice."

Under other circumstances, Misato might have been amused with how gung ho Kaji was about this battle, clearly eager to atone for his failure against the Tenth Angel. As things stood, however, she could only hope that the way she'd been needling him about his failure wouldn't come around to bite Shinji, or either of the other two pilots, in the ass.

"Captain Kaji," Rei spoke up, "which one of us do you wish to take point?"

"Asuka, you take point," Kaji said.

"Oh, but shouldn't the brave, new number one pilot do it?" Asuka asked in an all-too-innocent tone, shocking everyone in the command center into silence.

"Huh?" Shinji replied.

"Well, you _are_ the top scoring pilot right now, so far as sync ratio is concerned," Asuka said. "So you should be the one to take point. Unless, of course, you're too scared to lead. Then I guess I could take point like usual."

Inside his entry plug, Shinji clenched his fists, his usually dormant ego suddenly waking up and taking the bait, hook, line, and sinker. He couldn't fail to rise to Asuka's challenge like some pathetic coward! Especially not so soon after Misato had called him the big hero of the pilots!

"Fine!" he snapped. "I'll take point! And I'll kill the Angel faster than you could!"

"_What?_" Asuka screeched, unable to believe that her ploy to get the usually meek Third Child to admit she was still the best pilot had backfired in such a dramatic fashion.

Meanwhile, in the command center, Misato and Kaji traded a look. They both knew that they should say something; the pilots couldn't be allowed to decide their course of action by committee; that would only invite chaos onto the battlefield. However, both of them were too stunned at what was happening to speak up.

On the main screen they watched as the trio of Evangelions approached the Angel as stealthily as such huge weapons of war possibly could. Unit One had been deployed closest to the Angel and was shortly within firing range. Units Zero and Two, however, had started further off, and they had to trade umbilical cables several times as they advanced.

Misato's gaze flicked over to the small monitor where the pilots' life signs were displayed. She was unsurprised to see that Shinji's heart rate and blood pressure were elevated. Lying in wait to ambush an enemy was always nerve wracking, even when that enemy wasn't an Angel with capabilities that could still only be guessed at.

"Asuka, Ayanami, are you in position yet?" Shinji asked.

"No," Rei answered succulently.

"Baka, you know an EVA can't move that fast," Asuka grumbled.

A few more horrendously tense seconds passed in silence. Then, Shinji finally snapped.

_Oh forget it, I'll kill it myself!_ The Third Child thought.

Evangelion Unit One broke from cover, raising the EVA scale pistol it held in its hands. On Shinji's command, the purple colossus squeezed off several shots, easily striking the giant sphere that floated nearby.

The black and white ball responded by winking out of existence.

"Blue pattern detected!" Makoto suddenly exclaimed. "Angel confirmed!"

The sphere returned to visibility a second after Shinji had shot at it, but it still made no motion to attack. However, the shadow on the ground was another story entirely. It darkened to pitch black until it wasn't so much a shadow as it was a gaping maw that had formed beneath Unit One's feet.

Shinji screamed and pointed his pistol down at the abyss, pulling the trigger again and again until the weapon clicked empty. The gaping hole in the world easily absorbed the huge shells, showing no sign of damage.

"Of course!" Ritsuko exclaimed from the bridge. "I've been so stupid! The sphere isn't the real Angel! The shadow is!"

"What?" Kaji asked. "Then what's the sphere?"

"The sphere is a shadow!" Ritsuko said. "You see—"

"You can give us the technical details later, Rits," Misato cut the scientist off.

"All of you, get out of there!" Kaji ordered the pilots, even though Units Two and Zero were already seeking higher ground.

"I can't!" Shinji exclaimed, panicking as Unit One sank up to its waist in the blackness.

"Asuka, Rei, can you reach him?" Kaji asked.

The two of them were certainly willing to try, and both the red and blue Evangelions began to make their way toward his location. However, Unit One was caught almost dead center in the middle of the Angel, while the two of them had been on the periphery. And the only way to proceed was to go hopping from building to building, using the skyscrapers as stepping stones. This was made even more difficult because the great towers of metal and concrete were starting to sink into the Angel as well, making them less than the most stable of places for the Evangelions to tread.

All this meant that the other two Evangelions had a large amount of distance to cover, in a small amount of time, and they had to move carefully, lest they fall into the void as well.

"Help me!" Shinji yelled, all machismo long forgotten. "Help!"

"Idiot," Asuka grumbled under her breath. "What good is doing well on a test if you fail in real life?"

Yet for her harsh words, the Second Child was frightened. This would be her damn fault if Shinji died, and despite his infuriating tendency to show her up where EVA was concerned, she now discovered that she really _didn't_ want the Third Child to bite it. Seeing that Unit One was sinking at ever greater speeds, she increased her pace, exercising less caution than she knew she should have as she made her way to him.

_Almost there,_ she thought. _Almost there._

With one last, flying leap, Unit Two landed hard on a skyscraper that was just out of Unit One's reach. The crimson titan wobbled alarmingly, and Asuka grit her teeth as she strove to regain her balance. She and everyone watching in the command center breathed a collective sigh of relief when Unit Two managed to get its footing.

Asuka immediately commanded her EVA to squat down, being careful not to unbalance the sinking building as she did so. The production-model Evangelion reached out one enormous hand toward the test-type.

"Take my hand, baka," Asuka commanded.

Unit One immediately reached up, its pilot desperate for salvation. The fingers of the purple destroyer's hands brushed Unit Two's hand.

And then it was as if something inside the blackness had grabbed hold of Unit One's ankle and pulled fiercely. The test type Evangelion was abruptly pulled into the dark maw of the Angel entirely, leaving Shinji's final, terrified cry echoing in everyone's ears.

There was dead silence in both the command center and the battlefield for almost a solid minute after Unit One disappeared. Neither Asuka nor Rei moved their Evangelions at all, despite both of them being on less-than-stable perches.

Finally, Kaji broke the quiet. "Withdraw."

"But…Ikari-kun…" Rei spoke up, in what was possibly the closest she'd ever come to refusing a command from a superior officer.

"Withdraw," Kaji repeated, with a very weary sounding sigh. "That's an order."

* * *

"You plan to do _what?_" Misato screeched at Ritsuko less than two hours later.

The Angel had mercifully ceased all movement once Unit One had been consumed (possibly to digest, Aoba had foolishly speculated out loud), and NERV had hastily erected a small outpost a safe distance from its perimeter. Ritsuko and the other big shots among NERV's various scientific and technical departments had all but demanded this, but Misato wasn't at all sure why; their proximity to the Angel didn't seem to be helping them make any significant progress.

"The plan is to use 992 N2 mines to attempt to destroy the Angel," Ritsuko said.

"And you call that a plan?" Misato demanded angrily. "You could very well kill Shinji! Not even an EVA can withstand _that_ much destructive force, especially if its AT field isn't raised!"

"What do you suggest, Misato?" Ritsuko asked shortly, her patience obviously running out. "And keep in mind that Unit One's life support system can only operate for sixteen hours, about two of which have already been expended. And that's _assuming_ that Shinji had the sense to power down, rather than wasting time panicking in the dark. If we don't do something, he's dead, anyway."

"So you're just going to chuck a whole bunch of explosives into the Angel and hope that it's enough to give the damn thing indigestion?" Misato snapped.

"You make it sound like we haven't thought this over as much as the time constraints have let us," Ritsuko said with a frown. "Our preliminary calculations clearly show—"

"Oh, please! You have no idea how to beat this thing, so you decided to throw as much boom into the Angel as you can, and dress the whole thing up with a bunch of techno-babble," Misato growled.

Ritsuko sighed. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Misato," she said, then turned to walk away.

"What? That's it?" Misato asked.

"I just came to tell you what we're doing as a courtesy," Ritsuko said. "I don't need your approval for this, just Kaji's, which I already have."

"He didn't," Misato said.

"He did," Ritsuko confirmed. "If you'd look at this situation objectively, you'd see that this is the only sensible course of action."

_Oh, go to hell, you bitch,_ Misato thought but just managed to keep herself from saying.

Damn Kaji. He kept making decisions by the numbers and screwing everything up.

"Ritsuko!" she called.

The scientist stopped and turned. "Yes?"

"When is the bomb drop scheduled for?" Misato asked.

"It'll take a while to prepare. We're going to try and do it just before Unit One's battery is expected to run out of power," Ritsuko said.

"Right," Misato said.

_About fourteen hours,_ Misato thought as Ritsuko disappeared. _That should be plenty of time._

Turning on her heel, Misato made a big show of stomping away. After her fight with Ritsuko, everyone would just think that she had stormed off in a rage. It wasn't exactly an act, either.

Misato kept going until she was a good distance away from the impromptu NERV outpost, then looked around. The city was evacuated, of course, but it wasn't entirely impossible that some member of NERV had also wandered out here, or that someone who'd failed to heed the evacuation order was around.

Eventually becoming satisfied that she was alone, Misato closed her right hand into a fist and allowed the power ring there to shimmer into visibility. A moment later, there was a flare of emerald light from around her, and Misato Katsuragi was replaced by Green Lantern.

Taking to the air, the luminous superwoman flew back toward the Angel, her protective aura of green light leaving a trail behind her like the tail of a comet. Several of the personnel at the NERV outpost stopped what they were doing to look up at her. Many of them pointed and murmured, relieved to see one of the city's protectors at the scene of the debacle but too afraid of invoking the wrath of the organization's brass to openly cheer.

_If only I'd been here before, this wouldn't have happened,_ the emerald superwoman thought guiltily. _And I wouldn't have to do this._

Green Lantern stared down into the black maw. She felt a great anxiety take hold of her as she looked at it. The Angel was a darkness too deep to be natural. Even on moonless night, one could still hope to see the pale, frozen points of light created by distant star pierce the darkness. But the blackness of the Angel was perfect and total. It wasn't hard to believe that it would, like black hole, swallow up any light that dared to venture within it.

Even the light of a Green Lantern like herself.

The luminous superwoman then shook her head, dispelling the cowardly though. Gritting her teeth, she steeled her will and gave the ring a mental command. It obeyed, and she immediately went plummeting toward the Angel.

Several of the onlookers gasped as they realized what she was about to do. But there was no stopping her, even if they had wanted to.

Green Lantern plunged into the darkness, in search of Evangelion Unit One, and, more importantly, its pilot.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** This one was actually supposed to cover Misato's excursion inside the Twelfth Angel, but my muse just gave out on me. Apparently, it's becoming increasingly fond of cliffhangers.

Anyway, several of you, dear reviewers, predicted that Misato would make herself younger with the ring from pretty much square one, much as Arisia made herself older so she could be with Hal. Well, congrats, you called it. I was actually planning this from the start, which is why I made of point of having Abin tell Misato that the ring would make her wishes, as well as her thoughts, a reality. And why I had her constantly wishing she wasn't too old for Shinji. However, she really won't be making herself his age. As much fun as writing "Altered Destinies" was, I have no desire to turn this fic into that one.

And yes, it probably _should_ count as using the ring for personal gain, but though the Guardians are often jerks, so far as I know, they tend to be pretty lenient when it comes to that. The only times I remember them penalizing a Lantern over breaking that rule was when Sinestro made himself dictator of his sector, and when Hal "recreated" Coast City.

Other than that, there's not much for me to say. So thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.

* * *

Omake

Unintended Crossover

Several of the onlookers gasped as they realized what she was about to do. But there was no stopping her, even if they had wanted to.

Green Lantern plunged into the darkness, in search of Evangelion Unit One, and, more importantly, its pilot.

Once inside the profound blackness, Green Lantern looked around anxiously, finding no sign of Unit One, or anything at all, save for herself, a miniscule pinprick of light in an ocean of blackness.

"In blackest night, indeed," she commented to herself.

Picking a random direction, she flew off.

_KLONK_

"Ow!" Green Lantern exclaimed, surprised at having actually collided with something in the emptiness.

The rather epic migraine that had suddenly assaulted her wasn't exactly pleasant, either.

"Misato! What are you doing here?" a familiar voice exclaimed. "I thought we agreed that you'd stay out of the Angel and cover for me while I got Shinji and the others!"

"Huh? What?" she muttered, looking at the figure before her.

She didn't recognize the sight of the woman in the blue and black armor at all, but the voice had been unmistakable. "Ritsuko?" she asked. "Are you Ritsuko?"

"Of course it's me!" Blue Beetle exclaimed indignantly. "Didn't you figure that out that time you beat the crap out of me until my helmet broke?"

"What are you talking about?" Green Lantern demanded. "You're not a superwoman!"

Blue Beetle opened her mouth to protest, then stopped herself, suddenly looking thoughtful. "Crap," she said.

"What?" Green Lantern asked.

"I think I just figured out what happened," she said.

"Do tell," Misato said.

"Our respective fics just happen to be at about the exact same place in the Eva timeline right now," Blue Beetle said, cheerfully breaching the fourth wall. "Combined with the strange properties of the Dirac Sea we're in, and the fact that this is an omake, it appears that our respective universes are fusing together."

"So, is there one Shinji in here, or two?"

"I suspect only one."

"Then I'm going to save him!" Green Lantern exclaimed.

"No way! I am!" Blue Beetle retorted.

"No, I will!"

"No, me!"

A shaft of light burst from Green Lantern's ring and quickly took shape. "This giant green boxing glove says different!"

The armor covering Blue Beetle's arms suddenly shifting into a pair of wicked looking energy weapons. "Bring it on!"

* * *

Meanwhile, a surprisingly short distance away, Shinji watched the whole scene playing out from Unit One's entry plug.

He knew that he should really call out to the two ladies, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it.

Getting a front row seat to a clash of superwomen was just too damn cool.

He reached out to a small hatch labeled "Open in case of super powered catfight" and turned the knob. Inside he found a small carton of popcorn that had been specially made to not get soggy in LCL.

Commanding the view screen before him to zoom in on the fight nearby, Shinji took a handful of popcorn and sat back in his seat to enjoy the show.

"Awesome," he commented.


	9. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Eight:** Doubts in the Darkness

The first thing that struck the Green Lantern as she plunged into the Twelfth Angel was not the darkness, as she'd suspected, but the cold. It sliced through her protective field in a way that the subzero temperatures of outer space hadn't been able to, causing her to gasp in surprise and displeasure.

She hadn't felt a chill so profound since she had been at the bottom of the world, and the memories _that_ brought up made her soul feel cold in a way that freezing temperatures never could. The Green Lantern shook her head, clearing her thoughts; she had no time for this sort of thing.

"Ring!" she exclaimed, feeling like she might turn into an icicle at any moment.

The Green Lantern half-expected it to ask her exactly what she wanted. One thing she'd learned in her time wielding it was that the power ring could sometimes be as obtuse as any computer; in addition to having no will of its own, the ring often seemed to have no real intelligence of its own, either.

However, this time, what she needed must have been obvious enough for it to figure it out without asking her to explain.

"_Increasing power to protective field_," the ring announced, and suddenly the aura of emerald luminance around her glowed far more brightly than it usually did.

Even so, she seemed like a tiny and pitiful bit of glowing flotsam in a vast sea of endless darkness. But at least she no longer felt like she might freeze to death in minutes.

_"Warning,"_ her ring spoke up before she could even consider her next move, _"use of intensified protective field will drain the charge of this ring at an accelerated rate."_

Green Lantern grimaced. "How long?" she demanded. "How long until I run out of power?"

_"At current rate of expenditure, two Earth hours,"_ it answered.

The Green Lantern grimaced. Two hours, that was all she had before she died inside the belly of one of her sworn enemies.

_And that's_ _assuming I don't freeze my tight little ass off __**before**__ that_, she mused darkly.

Because she only had two hours if she didn't use the ring for anything except keeping herself alive. She'd take time off the clock if she used it for anything else, which she would doubtlessly have to if she wanted to rescue Shinji.

The emerald superwoman's mouth pressed itself into a thin line at the thought of her charge, and she felt anger at both him… and herself. Anger at him for acting like a macho fool, and anger at herself for stroking his ego like she had recently. If not for her puffing him up like that, Shinji might not have behaved that way.

The Green Lantern shook her head, annoyed at herself. There was no time for this sort of thing.

"Ring, point me in the direction of Evangelion Unit One," she ordered.

Thin streams of emerald light shot out from her ring and flew off in every possible direction, much to her disgust. Either this Angel was messing with her ring somehow, or space was seriously loopy inside the damn thing.

Regardless of what the answer was, it was bad news for her.

"I guess one direction's just as good as the other," she grumbled, randomly picking a route and then taking off at top speed.

* * *

Once Kaji had given his assent for Ritsuko's plan to unleash nearly one thousand N2 mines upon the Twelfth Angel, he had found himself in the curious and irritating position of having next to nothing to do.

NERV itself didn't have its own arsenal of N2 weaponry. The UN and the Japanese government both felt the paramilitary organization had _quite_ enough weapons of mass destruction under their control already, so when NERV wanted to use an N2 bomb, they needed to get the regular military to launch them. As a result, coordinating this bombing of unprecedented destructive power simply wasn't his problem. And when the military did feel the need to consult with them, it was Ritsuko who answered the call. The Project-E chairperson had very much taken charge on this operation.

Kaji was partly relieved and partly annoyed by this development. He was relieved because working on such an endeavor, one that would almost certainly kill the Third Child, would make him feel nothing short of sick at heart. He was annoyed because…

_Old Rits is going about this with so much damn…gusto,_ he thought, taking one last, long drag off of his current cigarette before dropping it to the ground and stamping it out with the heel of his shoe.

He briefly considered lighting up another one, and then decided against it.

Without much other work to do, he had to seen the task of trying to calm down Asuka. The Second Child had been a complete mess; it was obvious to him that she was feeling guilty as hell, but she had been equally bent on not showing it. So the redhead had been loudly telling anyone who would listen that Shinji's predicament was entirely his own stupid fault.

Rei had not exactly taken kindly to Asuka's proclamations, and Kaji had arrived on the scene just in time to (mostly) defuse the situation.

After that, he'd tried to find Misato, but his tactical consultant had vanished, probably at least as distraught about the situation as anyone else.

So now he was stuck in the makeshift base NERV had set up outside the perimeter of the Angel. There wasn't anything useful for him to do, but as the Operations Director, leaving was unthinkable for him.

A break in this dreary boredom presented itself in the form of Lieutenant Makoto Hyuga, who approached the new Operations Director with a different expression on his face.

"Something I can do for you, Makoto?" Kaji asked, forcing himself to sound more amicable than he felt.

"Um, well, sir, I was just wondering, uh, that is… I…" the bespectacled technician stammered, suddenly looking very much like he wished he'd never opened his mouth to begin with.

"Spit it out, Makoto," Kaji said. "I'm not going to bite your head off."

"Sir, the Green Lantern just went into the Angel," he finally blurted out, then shut his mouth with an audible snap, clearly half-expecting Kaji to blow up at him for so much as mentioning the jade superwoman.

The spy-turned-officer didn't have to wonder at why. Gendo despised the city's superwomen, and NERV's official stance on them had always been less than friendly.

However, Kaji was not one to mindlessly trumpet the party line.

"I know," he said mildly. "Kind of hard to miss her, with the way she actually glows. Just about everyone here saw her."

Reassured by Kaji's calm response, Makoto forged on. "She must've gone in there to rescue the Third Child," he said. "There's no other possible reason for her to go plunging into the Angel like that."

"I can't say I can come up with a different explanation," Kaji said.

"So… shouldn't we hold off on the bomb drop, to give the Green Lantern enough time to get him out of there?" Makoto asked.

Kaji blew a breath out between his lips in something that wasn't quite a sigh and allowed himself a moment to contemplate just how much he _hated_ the Operations Director job.

He hated that it kept him from performing his duties as a spy. He hated that it had provided Misato with a wedge to keep them apart. And most of all, he hated that he kept finding himself in situations where he had to choose between the logical choice and the choice that felt right.

Misato, he knew, probably would've rolled the dice. She would've given the Green Lantern her shot at rescuing Shinji, and damn the reactions of the Commanders.

Kaji didn't much care if he got Gendo and Fuyutski angry at him, so long as they didn't become _murderously_ angry. Indeed, he would've been overjoyed if he pissed them off enough to earn a demotion.

However, he just couldn't do it. He couldn't justify taking such a massive risk, not to the Commanders, not a UN tribunal, and, most importantly, not to himself. He wished that he could, but he just couldn't believe that even the Green Lantern had a prayer of plucking the Third Child from the Angel's black maw.

And Ritsuko's crazy mass N2 drop might not give Shinji a _good_ chance of survival, but it did give him _some_ chance.

"We stick to the plan, Lieutenant," Kaji said.

"…yes, sir," Makoto said, then walked off.

Once he was gone, Kaji sighed and took out another cigarette, waiting for the clock to strike midnight on the life of the teenage boy who'd been dragged into this whole mess against his will.

* * *

The Green Lantern was deciding that she really hated this Angel.

More than the other ones, that is.

She had already used up thirty precious minutes inside this dark and horrible place, at least according to her ring. To her it felt closer to thirty hours, but her ring's charge would usually run out even under the best possible circumstances in that amount of time.

"Damn, is this thing going to just kill me with nothingness?" she wondered aloud. "That would be the worst. The Green Lantern defeated by the Angel of Boredom."

In a bizarre sort of way, flying through the inside of the Angel was like driving down a long stretch of particularly uninteresting highway, only worse. Everything looked exactly the same, and without anything in the blackness to act as a frame of reference, she had no damn idea how much distance she was covering. Indeed, for all she knew, she wasn't really getting anywhere at all.

And like a person who'd been driving along a very dull stretch of road, the sheer dullness of her travel eventually began to wear at her. She started to suffer what was almost a form of hypnosis, and despite her best efforts, her eyelids began to droop.

Like a driver who knows she's dozing off while still behind the wheel but is unwilling to pull over for a nap, the Green Lantern snapped back to full wakefulness with a start, but she couldn't seem to stay that way.

Every time she blinked, her eyes stayed shut for just a little bit longer than the time before. It occurred to her that there was little difference in what she saw, regardless of whether her eyes were open or closed. Either way, infinite blackness stretched out before her.

Then she realized that she honestly wasn't sure whether her eyes were open or closed. This discovery caused a raw panic—too powerful and too primitive a thing to be referred to as mere fear—to descend upon her, and she began to flail wildly in the endless void.  
It only took a second for her to become disgusted at her own terror.

_Oh, for God's sake, you are a Green Lantern! You were picked to have that ring because you can deal with fear!_ She scolded herself. _So stop freaking the hell out! Shinji will __**die**__ if you go to pieces here!_

Thoughts of the Third Child strengthened her resolve, as always, and they were what finally allowed her to regain a measure of control over herself.

"Okay," she said into the darkness, "I'll open my eyes on three. One…two…"

* * *

"…three!"

The Green Lantern recoiled in surprise upon what she saw when her eyes finally popped open. Instead of the ubiquitous darkness she'd been expecting, she found herself inside a very small room. It contained the absolute bare minimum of furniture; there was nothing more than a bunk built into the wall really, and that was just as well, since there was no room for anything else. The walls themselves were all grey, unadorned metal.

"Oh, my God," she whispered.

The gentle rocking motion of the floor beneath her feet made it obvious that she was on a ship, but the Green Lantern knew that already. She was very familiar with this cabin.

She should be. After all, she spent most of the long, _long_ voyage to Antarctica cooped up inside this very room.

Memories washed over her as the tiny details of the place—the things most easily forgotten—struck her senses. The room's smell, which had the mustiness of air which wasn't circulated enough, along with just a touch of salt, hit her nose and triggered a flood of recollections. She hadn't thought of the smell of this place in years and years, and if someone had asked her, she wouldn't have been able to describe the cabin's aroma to them. But once it filled her nostrils, she knew without a doubt that it was the very same one she'd lived with for what had seemed like such a long time to her back then.

She noticed other long forgotten details of the room, and all at once, they were as familiar to her as they'd been all those years ago. The scratches on the bunk, the cracks in the faux leather of the cushions, the coarseness of the blankets. She forgotten all of it, and now these things came back and hit her with the force of a punch to the gut.

_Oh god, it's __**exactly**__ the same,_ she thought, staggering back a step.

There was also something else she was familiar with, and had not forgotten as totally as she forgotten the smell of the room, even though it had not been a constant throughout the whole voyage.

It was the coldness. The ship's temperature control systems had never been able to beat it back entirely. It was unlike the direct, cutting chill she had found inside the Angel. This wasn't so bad—the heaters did that much, at least. But it was obvious that if the ship was to lose power somehow, the cold would become unbearable very quickly; it was like a hungry beast stalking just outside the gates, waiting for its time to strike. She knew that the deck would quickly drain the heat out of the feet of any person stupid enough to go barefoot, and that if she were to go to sleep, she would awaken to find her nose was so cold it was almost numb. Unless, of course, she kept her head under the covers, but the air would soon become stifling and uncomfortable.

However, none of that really mattered. The only reason the coldness was significant was because it meant they were getting close to the South Pole.

And her father's doom.

_But where am I?_ She wondered, looking around the cabin.

The Green Lantern remembered all too well how she, resentful at having been dragged along on this stupid trip by her father, and feeling betrayed by her mother for letting the man take her, had stayed in her tiny living space aboard the ship for as long as she could, rarely venturing outside. It had been as close as she could come to barricading herself inside her room.

And overall, it hadn't been hard. There had been little to tempt her to make more trips outside than getting the necessities required. Besides herself, the ship was full of salty old sailors and nerdy scientists like her father; not exactly the sort of company a teenage girl felt compelled to seek out. And as the weather outside had grown ever more frosty, her desire to go out had waned even further.

"So where the hell am—"

The cabin's heavy metal door opened then, allowing a gust of frigid air to enter, along with a swirl of snowflakes. The creak the hinges made as the door swung was another detail that returned to her the moment she observed it.

And Misato Katsuragi—circa 2000 A.D.—walked into the cabin, shivering. Grumbling something inaudible beneath her breath, she shut the door as quickly as possible and then stamped her feet to rid them of the wet snow that clung to her boots. She did not acknowledge the presence of her older, currently luminescent self within the cramped quarters.

The Green Lantern, on the other hand, was almost bowled over by the sight of her past self.

_Holy…_

It wasn't the surreal situation by itself which threw her for a loop; it was how damn _young_ the other version of her looked. She had been thirteen at the time, nearly fourteen. However, she could pass for sixteen if she wore high heels and something that showed off her burgeoning breasts, which were already the envy of all the other girls in her year, as well as most of the girls in the year ahead of hers. And since she had very much enjoyed the attention of older boys, as well as being treated like she was older than she was, she had done just that, as often as possible.

Or at least she had, before that terrible day.

But in the heavy parka that thoroughly concealed her younger self's developing curves, and the flat footwear that added very little to her height, she didn't look sixteen. She didn't look thirteen, either. Eleven, maybe. Twelve, _tops_.

Too young to endure what fate had in store for her, and in only days; if she remembered right, the blizzard that had covered the deck in white had occurred less than a week before the expedition reached its destination.

Before the Green Lantern had gotten over the shock of seeing herself just prior to the Second Impact, the heavy door to the cabin swung open again, and the sight of the man who walked in _really_ sent her reeling.

It was her father. Dr. Akira Katsuragi entered the already cramped little cabin, brushing snow out of his dark hair. His glasses were flecked with bits of white as well, but he didn't even bother to wipe them off, merely allowing the ice crystals to melt in the relative heat of the room.

_Oh my god,_ the Green Lantern thought, more amazed by how young her father looked than by how much like a child her past self appeared.

Like most people, she'd always thought of her parents as, well, old. However, the man before her was only in his late thirties; he had less than a decade on her current self.

"Misato-chan—" he began.

"What do you want?" the teenage girl interrupted him testily, causing the Green Lantern to wince.

Dr. Katsuragi barely missed a beat, however. "I wanted to spend some time with you," he said. "After all, I didn't bring you along on this trip so you could spend it all in here, sulking."

"It's not like there's much else to do onboard this old tub," Misato replied mulishly.

Dr. Katsuragi sighed and leaned against one of the walls. "Once we arrive, I can expect to be busy all the time—"

"So, business as usual, then," Misato sniped.

"Are you going to just keep shutting me out this entire trip?" her father asked, exasperation starting to show as his calm facade began to crack.

"_Yes!_" Misato exclaimed loudly. "I thought I made that perfectly clear when you _first_ talked about dragging me along on this _stupid_ trip!"

"Damn it, Misato," Dr. Katsuragi cursed, then seemed to check himself. He continued in a much softer tone. "I've already lost your mother, and there's nothing I can do about that. I don't want to lose you, too. I brought you with me on this trip to try and…reconnect with you."

"And what happens if we do reconnect?" Misato asked, glaring at him.

"Huh?" her father asked, looking confused.

"I'll tell you what happens," Misato said, and her voice came out in what was almost a snarl. The Green Lantern was taken aback by the sheer level of ferocity and rage that was plainly displayed on her younger self's face. "You'll feel that you've saved part of your happy little family, and then things will go right back to the way they've _always_ been."

"Misato-chan, that's not—"

"Oh, of _course_ it is!" Misato shrilled. "The only reason you're pulling out all the stops now is because me and Mom left you! As soon as you think you've fixed things, you'll go right back to burying yourself in your damn job! And I'll be left at home, waiting for a father who never comes, and wondering why the hell I was _stupid_ enough to 'reconnect' with you!"

"It won't be like that," Dr. Katsuragi protested, but he sounded more like he was making a plea than an assertion.

"Oh, yeah, right," Misato scowled, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms over chest. "Dad, you're in full-on panic mode, and you _still_ couldn't put your work aside in favor of your family. Instead, you decided to try and patch things up with me by dragging me along on what to you is basically a _business trip_ to the freaking South Pole!"

Misato delivered this tirade with all the attitude and melodrama that one might expect from a very pissed off thirteen-year-old girl, but there was still justice to her accusations.

Dr. Katsuragi seemed to realize it, too. He recoiled as if struck, and his mouth opened and closed soundlessly several times, as though he wanted to argue the point but couldn't figure out how. The teenaged girl had hit the bull's eye.

Misato's shoulders slumped. "Dad, just do us both a favor and go, okay?" she asked tiredly. "Just let this desperate attempt of yours fail so that when we get back home, we can both just move on."

Dr. Katsuragi hesitated. It was obvious that he didn't want to just give up, but he had no idea how to proceed in the face of his daughter's objections; he had no leg to stand on in the argument they'd gotten into. After a moment, he gave in and wordlessly left, with another gust of subzero air heralding his departure.

Misato went and sat down on her bunk, looking drained, but the Green Lantern barely noticed. She was staring at the heavy metal door to the deck, feeling sorry for her father.

Not that she'd forgiven the man. Or at least, she didn't think she had; her feelings regarding him were as much of a confused tangle as ever. However, she felt a degree of sympathy for him that she knew her younger self didn't, because thirteen-year-old Misato had never been responsible for a minor like the Green Lantern had.

She knew there were times when she hadn't been the ideal guardian, to put it mildly. And accepting responsibility for two of the EVA pilots hadn't magically given her the ability to let go of all of her vices, nor had it caused her to spontaneously gain the wisdom necessary to know how to best help and comfort the two teens who had endured so much in their short lives.

And that, combined with the realization that her father hadn't been that much older than she was now, made her a lot more willing to cut him some slack now than she had been back then.

Of course, if she had given him another chance back then, it wouldn't have made that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things; her conscience might have rested a little easier, but he still would have died when the expedition poked the First Angel with a stick.

And even if he miraculously _had_ survived, her father still might've done exactly what young Misato said he'd do, and buried himself in his work again the moment he felt that he'd regained his daughter. Hell, knowing him, he _probably_ would have done that. But still…

_I wish I'd given him just one more chance,_ the Green Lantern thought sadly.

"Understanding always comes too late, doesn't it?"

The Green Lantern started and whirled to face her younger self, who, after having given absolutely no sign she realized the emerald superwoman was there, was now looking straight at her and smirking.

"What?" Green Lantern asked.

"You lilim have such a difficult time comprehending one another's hearts and souls," the younger Misato said. "And when you finally do, it's too late to make any difference. And as a result…"

She trailed off, but the Green Lantern didn't have to wonder why she'd gone silent. A wet, red stain was forming on the front of her younger self's parka and was rapidly growing in size.

Yet despite the way the familiar, grievous wound was spontaneously manifesting, the younger Misato didn't seem the least bit troubled by it. Indeed, her smirk only widened, and when she spoke again, it was in a soft, malevolent whisper:

"It all…returns…to _nothing_."

And suddenly, the cabin just _exploded_, the metal walls, the bunk, and everything in it besides the two of them was torn to pieces and swept up into the sky, where they almost immediately vanished into the distance. The two versions of Misato Katsuragi, elder and younger, were not left standing on the deck of the ship, however. Instead, they were standing on the frozen ground of Antarctica, an impossibly powerful tempest swirling around them as the world seemed to implode before them.

_Oh God, no, not again,_ the Green Lantern thought, knowing all too well what this was.

Second Impact all over again.

It was almost exactly as she remembered it, complete with the screams of the wounded and dying, the blood turning the snow on the ground to a pale pink in many places, and the feeling that this couldn't _possibly_ be happening assailing her.

The only thing off about the scene was the conspicuous absence of Adam himself, for which the Green Lantern was extremely grateful. She wasn't at all sure that she'd be able to hold it together if she saw that horrible, golden giant again.

Her younger self finally seemed to feel the horrible wound she had sustained and crumpled to the ground.

Over the roar of the wind and the thunderous noise of the world apparently tearing itself apart, she heard her father.

"_Misato-chan!_" he screamed, and came running toward his daughter.

He was already wounded, as the young Misato was; blood steamed down the side of his face from a cut there. However, the injury was nowhere near fatal. He could still survive the ordeal.

But the Green Lantern knew what would happen next. There would be another great eruption, which would send a wave of scorching heat sailing across the icy wasteland, along with chunks of rock that would be like shrapnel. Dr. Akira Katsuragi would forsake any attempt to find cover in order to throw himself on top of his daughter, shielding her from it at the cost of his own life. Then, his scorched skin literally sloughing off of him and his lifeblood spilling out upon the snow, he would spend the last of his strength getting her to an escape pod.

The luminescent superwoman's jaw then set. She had been powerless to do anything then. She wasn't powerless now. She could protect all of them now. Her tendons tightened across her fist. She poured willpower into her ring.

And nothing happened.

"_No!_" she shrieked, looking down at it. Though her own protective field remained in place, the metal of her ring was dull and without luster. It refused to follow her commands, no matter how hard she tried to make it work. "Come _on,_ ring! Light up!"

The explosion that she knew would seal her father's fate burst into life in the distance. There were only seconds now. The Green Lantern's vision blurred as tears formed in her eyes.

"Save him," she begged her ring of power.

It still refused to function. In the very last moment, the Green Lantern tried to shove her father to the ground, intending to shield both him and her younger self with her own body. However, her hands went through him as though she was no more substantial than a ghost. He threw himself over her younger self.

And the wave of death swept over them.

The Green Lantern couldn't bear to watch this play out again. She squeezed her eyes shut.

* * *

And she might have kept her eyes closed for several minutes, if not for her ring choosing that moment to speak up.

_"Warning. Power levels 50 percent. At increased rate of energy drain, ring will be without power in one Earth hour."_

The words jolted her out of her current stupor, and reminded her that she was fighting an Angel. That she was _inside_ an Angel.

_How did I __**forget**__ that? _She wondered, bewildered.

Then she opened her eyes, and suddenly the Angel was pushed to the back of her mind all over again.

She wasn't at the South Pole any longer. Instead, she found herself in another place she knew far better than she would have liked to: a hospital room.

Specifically, the hospital room where she had spent most of her time in the years following Second Impact. Another version of herself, this one looking more like she was fourteen or fifteen, sat on the bed, staring sightlessly at the world.

The white hospital gown she was wearing was too big for her, the Green Lantern noted with some surprise. The younger Misato looked practically lost in it.

Actually, her younger self just looked lost, period, which was why it was so shocking when she turned to look up at the Green Lantern and spoke.

"The ability to overcome great fear," she said, her previously blank features twisting into a smirk.

"W-What?" the Green Lantern asked.

"That's what that ring said you had when you first put it on, isn't it?" Misato asked in a faux innocent tone. "That the reason Abin Sur said it picked you to be his successor, right?"

"Yeah," the Green Lantern said slowly, warily.

"And yet, on that day, you were _blinded_ by fear. _Paralyzed _by it," Misato said, her smirking taking on a more malicious edge. "How much time did you spend, just sitting here? Deaf and dumb to all the world?"

"Years," the Green Lantern said.

"Years," Misato agreed. "And you probably never would have come out of this state if not for all the help you received during those years, would you?"

"Probably," the Green Lantern agreed reluctantly.

"Think about that for a moment," Misato said. "Your father saved you at the cost of his very _life_, and you would have done absolutely nothing with the fruits of that sacrifice, besides exist, if you'd been left to your own devices."

Despite herself, the Green Lantern found herself looking down at her boots. She had never quite thought of her years of living in a catatonic state like _that_ before.

"And you think that you have the ability to overcome great fear," her younger self mocked her. "I think that ring and Abin Sur made a terrible mistake in picking you to be the next Green Lantern."

"That's not true!" the Green Lantern protested her head snapping up, allowing her piercing jade eyes to meet with the brown ones of her younger self. "Yes, Second Impact messed me up! It would have messed _anybody_ up! But it's a big part of what made me who I am! And it's what gave me the ability to overcome great fear! I haven't been afraid like that since I finally woke up, because once you've lived through the worst thing in the world, there's nothing left to be scared of!"

The younger Misato's smirk only widened. "Is that so?" she asked, tilting her head to the side slightly.

And before the Green Lantern could answer, the world shattered again.

* * *

When reality at last reformed once more, the Green Lantern wasn't in that awful hospital room any longer, nor was she anywhere near the South Pole.

Instead, she found herself inside of a dark bus stop. Rain hammered against the glass walls of the shelter, and the only illumination came from far off street lamps, as well as the occasional flicker of lightning.

And, of course, her own emerald aura.

Another younger version of herself sat on the shelter's hard metal bench. _This_ Misato Katsuragi of Christmas Past was in her senior year of college, and she currently looked very much like a drowned rat. It was obvious she had been caught in the rainstorm outside; she was soaked to the skin, and her dark hair was plastered to her skull with moisture. A battered old suitcase sat next to her.

The Green Lantern remembered this night, too. Only too often she wondered what her life might have been like if she'd done something different that evening.

This was the night she'd left Kaji. She had meant to do it properly, face-to-face, and let him down as easy as possible.

Instead, her nerve failing her, and fearing he might be able to convince her to change her mind, she had hastily written him a letter and then fled the apartment they'd been sharing. She had meant to hop a bus to the dorms where Ritsuko lived and beg her friend for a place to spend the night. However, she had missed the last bus, and she had ended up spending a miserable night inside the shelter like some vagrant.

Her younger self looked up and grinned wickedly at her. "You ran away," she said, a rumble of thunder punctuating her curt statement.

This time, the Green Lantern wasn't surprised to be addressed by herself. However, what did throw her for a bit off a loop was that her college-aged self was an almost perfect mirror of her. It shouldn't be that much of a surprise; thanks to her ring, she wasn't physically that much older than she had been in college anymore, but somehow, it was still jarring.

"I left Kaji," the Green Lantern replied evenly.

"You ran away from him," Misato said firmly. "And you ran away from what you felt for him. So, in a way, you ran away from yourself. Didn't you tell someone that he should never do that?" she added, her tone more mocking than ever.

"Damn it, leaving Kaji doesn't make me a coward," the Green Lantern snapped. "He's got all sort of bad qualities. He's arrogant, he can't stop himself from flirting with every pretty woman he comes across, and he can get so obsessed with something that he'll chase it and forget about everything else, just like Dad would."

"Maybe so, but you still loved him," Misato said.

The Green Lantern was so struck by this blunt proclamation that she couldn't come up with any reply.

"You loved him," Misato repeated. "But you ran away from him. You saw something you didn't like in him, and you finally realized what should have been obvious all along: someone you love can hurt you. You were afraid he might someday turn into your father, focusing on his own obsessions and ignoring the feelings of those he cared for, the feelings of those who cared for him. You let your fear of pain dictate your actions, and you fled."

A flash of lightning briefly turned night into day, and a rumble of thunder, louder than the last one, followed almost immediately.

"That's not…" the Green Lantern protested weakly.

"It _is_," Misato pressed, rising from the bench so she could face the luminous superwoman properly. Green Lantern reflexively backed up a step as her younger self got in her face, and hated herself (both of herselves) for it. "You finally found something potentially good and meaningful, and you threw it away. You went right back to indulging in sex and alcohol, alcohol and sex. A pointless cycle of hollow joy that you could repeat a million times and never be fulfilled. And why?"

"Stop it!" the Green Lantern yelled.

"Because you were afraid," Misato whispered.

The version of herself in the bloody parka appeared in the shelter then. "You were afraid that your father would hurt you again, and so you refused to try and fix things with him," she said. "And then he died saving your life."

The slightly older version of herself, clad in only that oversized hospital gown, materialized next. "The First Angel horrified you so much that you became too afraid to _live_, even though your father died so you could do just that."

"And when happiness, true happiness, seemed to be within your grasp, you ran away from that, too." College Misato said. "All because loving someone also means giving him the ability to hurt you."

"Face it," the Misato in the bloody parka spoke.

"You do _not_ have the ability to overcome great fear," the Misato who should've been catatonic finished.

Lightning and thunder struck as one this time. The short burst of harsh, white illumination cast strange shadows over the faces of the two pretty girls and the one striking young woman the Green Lantern faced, making them look skull-like.

"That ring _must_ have made some sort of mistake when it picked you," College Misato said firmly. "If Abin Sur had known you, had known about all the times fear has dominated you, he _never_ would have offered it to you."

The Green Lantern opened her mouth to protest, to argue, but the words just wouldn't come. A poisonous little worm of doubt had crawled into her heart; with all the times in her life that she had let her fears control her laid out like this, it was hard to find some justification for dismissing what her younger selves said.

_What if they're right? What if I was never meant to be the Green Lantern?_ She wondered despondently.

"Even a weapon like your power ring isn't going to be enough to save the world from the Angels," the youngest Misato, the bloodstained one, said.

"Not when it's on the finger of someone who never should have had it to begin with," the Misato in the hospital gown said. "The power ring is only as great as its wielder."

"And you never should have had the ring to begin with," College Misato said. "So you should just take the damn thing off and give up."

"Quit," the bloody Misato said.

"Surrender the ring," the hospital gown-clad Misato added. "Maybe someone who's actually worthy of it will get it next."

The Green Lantern looked down at her ring of power. She didn't want to give it up. Not at all. And yet…

If she really _was_ the wrong person for the job, then maybe the only way she could actually save humanity from the Angels was to resign her post as the Green Lantern of Sector 2814.

The past versions of Misato stood around the Green Lantern, encircling her. They waited with baited breath for her to give up her ring.

They were more than a little surprised when the jade superwoman smiled, realizing how easy the choice really was. Realizing, in fact, that it was no choice at all. Not for her.

"I won't give up," she said.

"Why not?" College Misato demanded.

"Because _I don't know how,_" The Green Lantern said, and now it was her turn to smirk.

It was so simple a truth, but it had nearly escaped her in the storm of recriminations and mockery her other selves had leveled against her. When confronted with a foe, she simply didn't know how to make herself give up. Back during her earlier days of service in the military, retreat had never been an option in her mind, let alone surrender; she had seen every mission through to the end regardless of anything (sometimes to the frustration of her superior officers). She would have fought the Tenth Angel until it had crashed into the ground and annihilated her, if she hadn't been able to defeat it. And if she hadn't had the ring, she still wouldn't have ceded the city to the Angel, like Kaji had done, no matter what the MAGI had said about their chances of beating it with the Evangelions. That was just what she was like when she faced any Angel, any enemy, any challenge. She couldn't make herself quit, not even when it was probably the smart thing to do.

"But—" the Misato from Second Impact began.

"No 'buts'," the Green Lantern snapped. "I haven't overcome fear every time I faced it, but that doesn't mean that I _can't_. If anything, it just gives me more reason to try and succeed in the future, because I know what happens when I fail."

"Yes, but—" the Misato in the hospital gown tried to get a point in, her voice tinged with obvious desperation.

"No 'buts'!" the Green Lantern barked. "I have people that I care about that I need to protect. Shinji, Ritsuko, Asuka. I won't give up the ring and just hope that whoever gets it next will do anything to help them."

"You _can't_—!" College Misato yelled.

"I _can_," the Green Lantern said, emerald light flaring around her. "And the first thing I'm going to do is get rid of you three bitches!"

"You can't do that!" Second Impact Misato shouted. "We're you!"

"_Bullshit!_" the Green Lantern snapped. "I've beaten myself up plenty of times in the past, but not like this. I tell myself I'm a drunk whore. I tell myself I was a bad daughter. But I don't constantly question my own courage. You aren't me. None of you are!"

The three doppelgangers just looked at her with wide eyes, silent.

"And I've finally figured out what you _are_. You're the Angel!" the Green Lantern hissed. "And I decided a long time ago that the Angels get no mercy from me!"

Three lances of emerald light erupted from her power ring and shot out toward the fake versions of herself. Each of them tried to dodge, but the Green Lantern could strike with the speed of thought. Each faux-Misato was impaled through the chest and collapsed to the ground.

And then the storm outside released one more truly enormous clap of thunder. The noise was so great that it seemed like it actually _did_ tear the world apart; the bus stop, the dark streets, and even the storm itself broke, vanished, and the Green Lantern was once more left in the pristine darkness she had found when she had first entered the Angel.

Except this time, she could see a ruby sphere the size of a truck floating placidly in the sea of nothingness.

_"Warning,"_ her ring spoke up. _"Power levels approaching 5.0 percent. At increased rate of energy drain, ring will be without power in under ten minutes."_

"Plenty of time," the Green Lantern said, a bloodthirsty light appearing in her piercing eyes.

She concentrated, intent on putting her ring's remaining power to good use. A beam of light shot forward from it, soon forming a large construct. It was the massive fist of an Evangelion, Unit One to be precise, and it held within its grip a progressive knife made from emerald radiance.

With a thought from the Green Lantern, the luminous blade came down and stabbed the center of the Angel's core, immediately penetrating the tough material.

A horrible, shrill shrieking noise filled the nether realm that was the inside of the Twelfth Angel, but the Green Lantern didn't mind it at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. The death knell of the beast was music to her ears.

Then the core exploded violently, spraying broken chunks of red material flying out in all directions. The Green Lantern formed a protective bubble around herself, but there was no need for it.

As the bits of broken core flew, they seemed to lose their individual shapes and expand before her very eyes. Soon they had all merged into one red mass. Soon after that, the Green Lantern found herself completely surrounded by all of it. She had gone from being immersed in complete blackness to swimming in total redness.

Before she could even wonder what to do now, the world around the Green Lantern shook. She heard a loud _crack_, which seemed to come from all around her.

Then the redness started to rapidly fall downward, and the emerald superwoman realized belatedly that it was blood. She was caught within a veritable sea of Angel blood.

But not for long. Gravity took hold of it, but not of her, and it went splashing downwards. When finally it had all gone past her, the Green Lantern at last saw what had happened.

She was back outside, in the air high above the city. Apparently, she had somehow ended up in that great, zebra-striped sphere above the Angel's all consuming maw.

She felt more than a little grateful for the way the red liquid just slid off her protective field, not leaving her painted crimson. However, she didn't spare much time thinking about that; EVA Unit One had emerged as well. The multi-ton engine of death collapsed limply to the ground, crushing a few weapons blocks beneath its immense weight.

"Shinji-kun," breathed the Green Lantern, and quickly soared down to the normally purple destroyer, which, unlike her, _had_ been painted red.

It would've looked more bestial than ever if not for the awkward, clumsy position in which it had landed.

Reaching it before anyone from NERV could, the Green Lantern willed a massive jade crowbar into existence and pried off the armor over Unit One's entry plug. Then she quickly formed a great circular saw and cut a hole into the plug itself. She dove into the LCL, desperate to lay eyes upon the Third Child.

Her heart almost stopped when she saw him.

Shinji Ikari was dead. He had drowned in the LCL some time ago by the looks of it; his face already appeared bloated from having been immersed in liquid after death, and his skin had taken on a horrible gray pall.

He must have spent his EVA's battery power flailing around uselessly in the dark, she realized. Once his five minutes had been up, the life support system would have cut off entirely. He would've died as soon as he'd used up the oxygen content of the LCL. He'd probably been dead before she'd even entered the Angel.

All of her efforts had been for nothing. Her quest to save him was doomed from the start.

She suddenly felt dizzy and lightheaded. That feeling of unreality she'd experienced during Second Impact was back, and she felt a horrible ache inside her chest. Tears stung her eyes.

NERV personnel were approaching Unit One. Given the Commander's nearly fanatical loathing of the superwomen, it was a safe bet that they wouldn't be too friendly, at least not once he was able to learn about the situation and give them their orders. And her ring was running on fumes; she should really get the hell away.

But she found she couldn't quite care enough to flee. She found that she didn't care much about anything anymore.

_"Warning,"_ her ring spoke up, startling her. _"Power levels approaching 1.0 percent. At increased rate of energy drain, ring will be without power in under two minutes."_

She nearly ignored the announcement from her power ring entirely. After all, what did it matter if she ran out of power now? She had failed totally anyway.

Then it clicked. The ring was still talking about accelerated power loss, but that shouldn't be happening anymore now that she was outside of the Angel.

So that meant…

"I'm _still_ inside the damn thing!" she exclaimed. "All this is just one more damn illusion!"

Thunder rumbled from the clear blue sky. Apparently, the Angel wasn't happy that she'd seen through its little trick.

"Ring, wipe away these damn mirages!" she commanded, heedless of how little power it had left. "Now!"

If she was going down, then she was going down _swinging_.

Spears of light flew off in all directions, momentarily blinding her. When she regained the ability to see, blinking away spots, she could see that she was once more in the completely black universe that existed inside the Angel's belly.

And once more, she could see the core floating inside the nothingness nearby.

Hopefully, it was the real one this time. The Green Lantern was certainly going to give it the benefit of the doubt.

With a loud cry, she unleashed a massive blast of green light at it, pouring all the pain and anguish she had just felt because of the Angel's little trick into the beam. The core never stood a chance, and it instantly shattered into a thousand pieces.

Then things played out just as they had before. The sea of blackness changed to an ocean of blood, which went splashing to the city streets, painting a large portion of Tokyo-3 crimson. Unit One again went sprawling to the ground, crushing a few buildings and landing in an undignified heap.

The exact same undignified heap from before. Ice gripped the Green Lantern's heart, as she began to suspect that this was just another repetition of the very same illusion.

If so, she had probably lost. She didn't have enough power in her ring to do it again, let alone figure out a way to break the cycle.

Then the armor over Unit One's back opened, and the entry plug emerged. The hatch opened, and Shinji came out, coughing up LCL and blinking in the light of the sun. Relief swept over her.

Green Lantern's heart leapt, but she didn't dare start celebrating just yet. This could just be the Angel's means of keeping her placated until her ring was completely out of juice.

Fortunately, her ring chose that moment to speak up again. _"Warning," _it said. _"Power levels approaching 0.0 percent."_

No mention of the charge draining at an accelerated rate. The Green Lantern finally allowed herself to relax completely, confident that she had escaped the Twelfth Angel at last. A sigh of profound relief escaped her.

Putting the last ergs of her ring's power to good use, she flew off, in search of a good place to change.

* * *

"You're damn lucky to be alive, you know, after the stupid stunt you pulled."

These were Asuka's first words to Shinji when she saw him, after he had crawled down a very long rope ladder to get from Unit One's plug to the city streets. It was not the warmest of greetings, to be sure, but he thought he detected relief in the Second Child's expression and in her stance.

Of course, it could just be wishful thinking and his imagination at work. It was quite possible that Asuka—and the rest of NERV, for that matter—wasn't _that_ happy to see him alive.

Which, he mused, would be about what he deserved, considering how he'd behaved like a chauvinist idiot and gotten himself trapped inside the Angel.

"Well," Kaji said as he walked over to them, "you gave us all quite a scare there, Shinji. I'll probably have to punish you later for ignoring orders like that, but for now, let me just say that it's good to see you safe."

"What happened, anyway?" he asked. "How did I get out?"

"The Green Lantern flew into the Angel, and apparently she killed it from the inside," Kaji said, then shrugged to convey his lack of information beyond that.

"The Green Lantern?" asked Shinji, not noticing Asuka's dark scowl at the mention of the emerald superwoman.

"Yes," Kaji answered. "Say, come to think of it, she rescued you while you were caught in that robbery a few months back, right? It's starting to look like you've got your own guardian angel, if you'll excuse the phrase. A green one."

Shinji blinked, not at all sure what to say in response to that.

Fortunately, the loud, joyful cry saved him from having to make any kind of response.

"Shinji-kun!" yelled Misato before grabbing him in a bone crushing hug.

"Where did you come from?" Asuka asked crabbily.

The redhead's question was cheerfully ignored. "I was so worried!" Misato gushed as she continued to squeeze the life out of the Third Child.

"Ah, Misato, I've still got LCL on my plug suit," Shinji somehow managed to gasp out. "You're getting it all over your clothes!"

"I don't care!" she replied, not relenting one bit.

Asuka sighed dramatically and then glanced over at Kaji. The long haired man just shrugged in response.

Shinji would have sighed as well, but he had no breath left to sigh with. So he silently resigned himself to getting squeezed by Misato until she was good and ready to let him go. Which might or might not be before he'd suffocated.

Yet despite his discomfort, Shinji couldn't help feel happy at Misato's exuberance. It was good to see that she was glad to have him back.

And since his face was quite hidden thanks to the purple-haired woman's frantic embrace, and because nobody would ever see…

He smiled.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** And here we have a dive into the delightful world of mind screw. In my time as an Eva fan fic author, I think I've written a few good ones and a few not so good ones, and I'd say that the difference between the two, when I'm writing, is what I have in mind when I approach them. If I have some message I want to get across, some plan in mind, it usually comes out pretty well. If my goal is "insert head trip here" then it's usually pretty meh, at best.

I started this one with no more in mind than putting Misato through something thoroughly traumatizing, which definitely put this one in the latter category. Then I started poking through my Sinestro Corps War books, and I reread the bit where Hal, Guy, and John try to charge up off the Central Power Battery, only to discover it's booby trapped. And though we only get to see what happens to Hal, each one has to endure being shown the moment they suffered the most fear. I decided to take that moment and put it on steroids for Misato, culminating with the "Shinji's dead" fake out, and I think it worked pretty well. Astute readers and GL fans will note the various shout outs to the comics.

This was actually supposed to end on a dark note, but that didn't feel right to me, hence the ending we got. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that the Thirteenth Angel is just around the corner…

Anyway, thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well. Now for some fun.

* * *

Alternate Delaying Tactics

"And you never should have had the ring to begin with," College Misato said. "So you should just take the damn thing off and give up."

"Quit," the bloody Misato said.

"Surrender the ring," the hospital gown-clad Misato added. "Maybe someone who's actually worthy of it will get it next."

The Green Lantern looked down at her ring of power. She didn't want to give it up. Not at all. And yet…

If she really _was_ the wrong person for the job, then maybe the only way she could actually save humanity from the Angels was to resign her post as the Green Lantern of Sector 2814.

The past versions of Misato stood around the Green Lantern, encircling her. They waited with baited breath for her to give up her ring.

They were more than a little surprised when the jade superwoman smiled, realizing how easy the choice really was. Realizing, in fact, that it was no choice at all. Not for her.

"I won't give up," she said.

Her three doppelgangers traded looks.

"This is not working," the youngest Misato said.

"She is resisting our attempts to destroy her willpower," the middle one said.

"Clearly, we must try…other tactics," College Misato concluded.

Green Lantern decided she didn't like the sound of that.

The bus stop and the rainy night seemed to shatter into a thousand pieces. The shards quickly pulled themselves back together again, and—

* * *

—Green Lantern found herself in another place she knew well. It was a very large basement room, and very messy, adorned with the cheapest of rental furniture to boot. People in their late teens and early twenties were hanging around, some laughing, some talking, some passed out on the floor.

She smiled. This was the house of one of the biggest frats in her college. She had spent many a night partying her, drinking, and flirting with guys.

"Misato!" one of her friends for college exclaimed, rushing up to her. She didn't seem to notice that her favorite drinking body was in a strange outfit, or that she was glowing green.

"Azumi-chan!" Green Lantern exclaimed, cheerfully.

"I'm so glad you're here!" Azumi said. "You won't believe it! Yoko just broke your record for most beers chugged in sixty seconds!"

"_What?_" Green Lantern squawked. "That bitch! I'll show her! Get me some brewskis, Azumi! I'm going to win back my title and restore honor!"

"Yatta!" Azumi exclaimed, and ran off to do what her friend had asked.

Her ring actually managed to sweat drop. "_Um, don't you have more important things to do?"_

"Shut up, ring," she snapped.

It sighed. _"Silent mode engaged."_

In a dark corner of the large room, her three doppelgangers traded high fives.


	10. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC Comics or anything associated with it, and I am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Nine: **Liquid "Courage"

The Angel was huge, perhaps the largest one that the world had yet to see, but Green Lantern wasn't afraid.

She had the most powerful weapon in the universe on her finger, after all.

"Take this!" she shouted, firing a blast of jade light at her enemy.

The energy beam hit the Angel right in the eye (or something that looked like one, anyway), sending it staggering backwards with a thunderous roar of pain. She was about to capitalize on its moment of weakness, but Unit Two sprinted forward, its pilot clearly intent on winning her fair share of the glory. She nearly ran right over Green Lantern in her haste, in fact.

"That girl will be the death of me one day…" the jade superwoman muttered to herself as she watched Asuka go to work.

Unit Two's armored fists crashed into the Angel's face, sending broken chunks of its exoskeleton flying in all directions, and Green Lantern couldn't help but smile despite herself.

_A victory will do Asuka good,_ she mused.

The moment she had this thought was precisely the moment when everything went wrong.

There was an _explosion_ of light and sound, and most of Evangelion Unit Two's right arm simply ceased to exist. One moment, it had been there, and the next it was completely gone. All that remained was a bloody stump.

Asuka shrieked at the top of her lungs, Unit Two's external speakers transmitting the sound for kilometers in all directions, but the Angel was a pitiless enemy.

Just like all its siblings.

It lashed out, striking Unit Two hard enough to send it tumbling to the ground.

"No!" Green Lantern cried, finally getting over her shock and surprise.

The emerald superwoman streaked forward, leaving a trail of green light in her wake as her power ring glowed with deadly energy.

The Angel attacked again before she could even get close, its eyes flashing as it unleashed a blast of cross-shaped energy.

_Yellow_ cross-shaped energy.

Releasing a yelp, Green Lantern turned sharply, but she couldn't dodge the attack, not completely. The golden light clipped her in the shoulder with enough force to send her into an uncontrolled spiral.

Green Lantern was flipped crazily through the air as she fell, becoming completely disoriented. Even if she had been able to tell which way was up, regaining control of her flight was nigh-impossible due to the all-consuming pain from her injury.

She hit the ground, and the protective field her ring gave her was the only thing that prevented Green Lantern from suffering bone-shattering injuries. As it was, she was severely dazed and allowed herself to just lie on the ground for a few seconds, recovering.

Then she heard the crunch.

Green Lantern's head snapped up, and a moment later, she felt like her heart had stopped.

The Angel had brought its gargantuan foot down on Unit Two's torso—right where the entry plug was—and crushed it like a soda can.

"_**No!**_" Green Lantern shouted, instantly taking to the air again and heading toward the Angel, intent on avenging the Second Child.

However, she wasn't the only one. The air rumbled with the deep roar of Evangelion Unit One as it thundered across the landscape, progressive knife drawn. The test type EVA leapt at the Angel…

Only to be thrown away by a tremendous blast of energy. Unit One soared through the air for several seconds before crashing to the ground, landing face down. It didn't move once it came to a stop.

It didn't even so much as twitch.

"No…" Green Lantern breathed.

Ignoring the Angel, she flew over to Unit One, trying not to notice just how grievous the damage to it was. The armor on its front appeared to have been entirely melted; a puddle of molten metal was rapidly forming beneath it. She could also see badly burnt flesh on its sides.

The jade superwoman focused her willpower, and a beam of light came from her ring, quickly taking on the form of a massive crowbar. She used it to tear off the armor on Unit One's back before quickly extracting the entry plug.

_Please be okay please be okay please be okay please be okay…_

She opened up the entry plug and pulled out the pilot, only to feel her stomach plunge into her shoes.

Shinji Ikari was dead.

* * *

"_**NO!**_" Misato shouted, abrutply sitting bolt upright in her futon.

She looked around her cluttered bedroom wildly, confused and terrified. Then she realized that what she'd just seen had been a nightmare, and she allowed herself to lie back down with a groan.

"Least I didn't wake Asuka up this time," she muttered to herself, knowing that she'd be hearing the German's angry footsteps approaching her door by now if she'd disturbed the girl's sleep again.

She'd been having dreams like this ever since her experience inside the Twelfth Angel. Sometimes it was the Third Angel, which took out Shinji and Unit One with its final, suicidal attack. Sometimes the Fifth roasted him alive inside his entry plug. Other times, both Shinji and Asuka sank to the bottom of the sea while fighting the Sixth Angel, or the Seventh Angel tore them apart. On certain occasions, her mind would create some bizarre gestalt of the previous Angels to slay Shinji. That was what she'd seen in her latest nightmare.

The only things that remained constant was that she was always part of the fight as the Green Lantern, and Shinji always died despite her best efforts. At the end, she was always treated to the same sight: the image of the dead Shinji Ikari that the Twelfth Angel had tried to trick her with.

Misato placed a hand over her chest. Her heart was still hammering like crazy. It was a wonder these dreams hadn't given her a heart attack yet.

She turned her head to look at her alarm clock and groaned. It read 1:47 AM.

There was no way she was getting back to sleep now, at least not without a lot of help. Fortunately, she had that.

Misato grabbed the neck of a large bottle of sake she had recently made a habit of keeping next to her bed. Opening it up, she took a very long pull, grimacing at the taste.

"Bleh," she muttered, wiping her mouth with her forearm once she'd finished. "Sake that cheap should really be heated before you drink you it."

Still, the alcohol content was acceptably high. It had a bigger kick to it than Yebisu did, which was what she needed.

Though it didn't have enough of a kick that one swig would do the job. Misato closed her eyes, and she wasn't surprised when that awful image of a dead Shinji Ikari appeared behind her eyelids.

"Kampai," she muttered, bringing the mouth of the bottle to her lips again.

* * *

"Misato? Misato, are you awake?" Shinji asked, tapping lightly on the door to her bedroom the next morning.

No response came from within.

"Misato?" Shinji called, slightly louder. "Misato, I'm coming in."

He slowly opened the door, waiting for any sign from his guardian that he wasn't welcome inside her bedroom. When that didn't come, however, he slowly crept inside, wrinkling his nose at the multiple piles of refuse that dotted the floor.

"Misato?" he said softly as he tiptoed toward her futon.

His guardian was completely hidden beneath the covers, and she didn't move as he drew near. The room stank of cheap sake, and a nearly empty bottle of the stuff sat next to her bed. Though Misato probably didn't know it, Shinji had been keeping track of how much of the liquor she'd been going through lately.

It was a disturbingly large amount.

"Misato?" he said, kneeling next to her bed and timidly placing a hand on the large lump in the blankets. He gave her a little shake. "Misato, are you okay?"

His guardian released a wordless groan by way of response.

Shinji was relieved; it was the first sign of life Misato had shown so far.

"Misato, you have to get up," he urged. "They're going to be expecting you at NERV in two hours."

She groaned again and finally poked her head out from beneath the covers.

Misato had definitely looked better, he decided. Her eyes were badly bloodshot, and there were dark bags underneath them. In addition, her skin had a chalky, unhealthy sort of look to it, along with just a tinge of green.

"Shinji?" she mumbled, barely comprehensible.

The Third Child had to force himself not to recoil; Misato's breath made the stench of the room seem absolutely mild in comparison. There was no doubt that she'd been hitting that sake bottle pretty heavily the previous night.

Not that this had been the first time he'd had to wake her up in this manner.

"They're going to be expecting you at NERV in two hours, Misato," he repeated. "You need to get up. I've made some coffee." He added hopefully.

"I don't feel well," she muttered, her words heavily slurred.

_Gee, I wonder why?_ Shinji couldn't help but think, glancing at the sake bottle.

"Should I call the doctor's office and make you an appointment?" he asked.

Misato shook her head. "No. Be fine," she mumbled, her eyelids already drooping downwards. "Just need to…" she yawned, "sleep it off."

Before he could try and protest, his guardian was back off to dreamland. Within seconds, she was emitting a series of very unladylike snores.

Sighing gustily, Shinji got back to his feet and left the room, sliding the screen shut behind him. He went to the kitchen to find Asuka there waiting for him, holding her bento box in her hands and tapping her foot impatiently.

"Well?" she asked. "What's the story with Sleeping Beauty in there?"

"She's not getting up, at least not any time soon," Shinji admitted. "We might as well go."

"Finally!" Asuka said. "If we hang around here any longer, then _we're_ going to be late, too."

"You could've left without me," Shinji pointed out as they left the apartment. "You know that, right?"

"Of course I do, stupid," Asuka grumbled.

"Then why didn't you?" he asked. "Are you worried about Misato, too?"

"No," Asuka growled, her tone making it clear that she wouldn't take it kindly if he tried to push this particular issue.

Which, even he realized, probably meant she was lying.

Shinji smiled, turning his head away so the redhead couldn't see it. However, his thoughts soon went back to Misato, and his expression grew dour again.

"Honestly, I don't know why she hasn't gotten into trouble at NERV yet," he mused. "I mean, she hasn't been showing up on time lately, if she even shows up at all."

"Baka, are you stupid?" Asuka snapped. "She hasn't been getting reprimanded because Kaji's been covering for her. He's been telling the Commanders that he's sending her on errands outside the base. Meeting with officers in the JSSDF and stuff like that."

"Oh," was all Shinji could say in response. He hadn't known that.

Asuka scowled. "He'll get into a whole lot of trouble if the Commanders find out that Misato's really just been going on a series of benders, too," she said. "Honestly, I don't know _what_ he sees in her. A man like him deserves so much better."

Shinji frowned. He didn't like Asuka expressing such a low opinion of their guardian.

On the other hand, it was pretty hard to deny that it was very nice of Kaji to stick his neck out for Misato. Shinji knew that she hadn't exactly been very nice to him lately.

He resisted the urge to sigh, knowing that Asuka would have something to say about his downcast mood. Instead, he turned back to look at the window of Misato's apartment.

_Why did she start drinking so much lately?_ He wondered. _What happened to you, Misato?_

* * *

"Hello, sirs," Kaji said. "Would it be too forward of me to say that you're all looking extremely well today?"

This cheerfully delivered attempt at brown-nosing was met with nothing but stony silence, which really didn't surprise the new Operations Director. Indeed, within the dimly lit holographic meeting chamber of the Human Instrumentality Committee, any display of cheer was more an act of rebellion than anything else.

The old men apparently weren't in a mood to tolerate rebellion.

"Please dispense with the pleasantries, Kaji," Keel said, his tone frosty. "This is a public meeting, and you will act in a professional manner."

Kaji resisted the urge to smirk at the Chairman's not-so-subtle reminder that the meeting was being recorded.

When he'd reported to these people in the past, it had been strictly off the record.

_Just another thing that's changed since Ikari managed to saddle me with the Ops Director job,_ he thought, now resisting the urge to grimace.

"Of course, sirs," he addressed the committee. "May I ask why you called me here?"

"This is in regards to Pilot Ikari's experiences inside the Twelfth Angel," the French member said.

"We believe it's possible that he was contacted by the Angel itself," the Russian member added. "That the Angel, in fact, attempted to communicate with him. If this is so, then he could possess knowledge which is vital to the war effort."

"Knowing how the minds of the Angels work could prove invaluable," the American member chimed in. "Yet in order to obtain that knowledge, we need to personally debrief the Third Child."

Kaji immediately bit down on what he _wanted_ to say, instead choosing his next words _very_ carefully.

"I can neither confirm nor deny that Pilot Ikari was contacted by the Angel while he was in the Dirac Sea," he said. "However, neither can he. I've debriefed him myself. He has told me that when he wasn't unconscious, he experienced a number of incomprehensible images and sounds. In my professional opinion, these were almost certainly the product of his own mind, generated from the immense fear and stress of the situation Pilot Ikari was in at the time."

"We feel we would be better judges of that," the Frenchman said. "We wish to debrief the Third Child ourselves."

"I'm afraid I must recommend strongly against that," Kaji said. "The whole experience has left Pilot Ikari badly shaken. Respectfully, I don't think he would respond well to kind of vigorous debriefing you'd perform."

Of course, in this case, "vigorous debriefing" was just code for "merciless interrogation."

_And I'll be damned if I let these old bastards abuse Shinji further,_ the long-haired man thought, somehow managing to keep a relaxed posture. _At least this crappy new job lets me do that much._

Keel normally wouldn't have tolerated being blocked by someone as lowly as Kaji, but everyone present knew that Commander Ikari would back his Ops Director in this instance. Gendo didn't want SEELE to have the potentially useful knowledge of how the Angels ticked if he could avoid it.

Unlike Kaji, Gendo had a number of options at his disposal if he wanted to thwart Keel's will.

"Very well," Keel said. "The mental health of the pilots is, of course, paramount."

Kaji didn't think he'd ever seen anyone lie quite so boldly before, and he worked in the intelligence business; it was often the _job_ of both his allies and his enemies to lie.

"I'm glad you feel that way," Kaji said. "Will there be anything else?"

"No, that will be all," Keel said.

Kaji made a slight bow before his image vanished from the virtual meeting room.

"Clever of Ikari to leash that one by making him the Operations Director," the Russian commented.

"Too clever," Keel said darkly.

* * *

Shinji's mood hadn't improved much since he'd arrived at school. If anything, he'd grown even more grim as he continued to contemplate Misato's abrupt downturn.

If there was one positive thing, it was that Asuka's attention was mostly off of him once they had arrived at school. As a result, Shinji no longer had to keep his somber mood hidden, for fear of getting snapped at for being "gloomy."

_I just don't get why she started doing this all of a sudden. It's not like anything particularly terrible happened recently,_ he mused. _I mean, the Twelfth Angel was scary, sure, and I'm sure it couldn't have been any fun just waiting around outside. But next to everything else that's happened so far, it's not like it was __**that**__ bad._

He supposed that there just a came a point when everything a person had witnessed and endured collectively became too much, but he didn't really believe Misato had hit that tipping point just yet. Frankly, he just couldn't swallow the notion that the purple-haired woman would crack before _he_ did, even if he ignored the fact that he was the one who went into battle while she remained in the relative safety of the NERV base.

"Hey, you okay, Shin-man?" Toji asked him, speaking quietly so as not to draw the attention of the teacher or the class rep.

"Huh?" he asked, caught by surprise.

"You look pretty down in the dumps," Kensuke observed in a whisper. "Well, more so than usual, anyway."

Shinji rolled his eyes. "I've been worried about Misato lately."

As always, the mention of his guardian got the immediate and complete attention of his two friends.

"Why?" Toji asked. "Has something happened at NERV?"

"Did an Angel attack her or something?" Kensuke asked in a voice barely quiet enough to escape the class rep's notice and received a dirty look from the jock.

Shinji shook his head. "Nothing like that," he said. "She's…she's been drinking a lot. More than usual."

The relief on his friends' faces was clearly visible.

"Oh, is that it?" Kensuke asked. "You had us worried for a second there, Shinji."

"Misato likes to knock back a few beers on her off time," Toji added. "She's a party girl. It's part of what makes her so cool. If she's drinking a little more, it's no big deal."

Shinji briefly considered informing Toji that she'd been drinking a _lot_ more recently, and what she was drinking these days tended to be significantly stronger than beer. However, he quickly decided against it and instead just mumbled something noncommittal in response, ending the conversation.

Toji and Kensuke didn't understand, and honestly, Shinji couldn't blame them; they didn't know Misato nearly as well as he did. They'd only ever seen his guardian when she was being social and cheerful, or at least putting up a front to look that way.

They'd never seen Misato while she was doing her duty and being the completely serious Operations Director.

They hadn't been present when she'd told him about how she'd been right there when Second Impact had happened, and thus they'd never gotten to see how sad and haunted she had looked when going over those old memories.

They hadn't seen Misato after one of her recent, over-the-top benders, which usually left her half-conscious and barely coherent.

_There are…so many sides of her that they haven't seen,_ he mused. _They don't know her like I do._

Of course, now that he thought about it, it wouldn't have done much good even if his friends _had_ taken his concerns seriously.

_Really, what are they supposed to do?_ He thought. _If I'm going to help Misato get through whatever's making her drink so much lately, I need to do it myself…or find someone who __**can**__ help me._

* * *

The desert was an inferno.

The Nevada desert had always been hot, of course, but it had grown even more scorching since Second Impact had altered the world's climate. Many of the species that had once managed to eke out an existence in the area had been driven to extinction by the even greater temperatures and increased scarcity of water. As a result, the dessert was quieter than it had been; for the most part, only the occasional hot, dry wind created any sound.

Well, the occasional wind and the rather sizable NERV base which was smack dab in the middle of the arid, dusty nowhere.

That day, the American NERV base, also known as the Second Branch, was bustling with activity. The reason for all of it was simple.

After months of work studying the S2 organ that NERV Central had retrieved from the Fourth Angel, and even more months of work to get it installed into Unit Four, the time had finally come to activate the damn thing and see if it worked.

If the test was successful, it would mark a major milestone in the understanding of Angelic biology, as well as open up scores of opportunities for new tactics in fighting the war. If the Evangelions no longer needed power cords in order to be able to function for more than five minutes at a time, it would allow NERV to completely rewrite their playbook for the better.

So, with all these thoughts in his mind, along with visions of personal glory, the Commander of the Second Branch ordered one of his underlings to flip the switch.

Exactly 1.278 seconds later, the world of every soldier, scientist, and salary man in the base turned _red_.

* * *

Meanwhile, things were peaceful in Tokyo-3, or at least as peaceful as they ever got.

Above the Geofront, construction crews were still working busily to rebuild the portion of the city that had been swallowed by the Twelfth Angel, creating a great bustle of noise. As usual, several citizens would write to the city council to complain about the racket. The elected members of the council, having no real power, would input the letters into the MAGI. The supercomputer, in turn, would dutifully read the complaints, calculate that the reconstruction of the city was necessary, and order that the letters be shredded.

In NERV headquarters, however, things were quiet and sedate. The few repairs that the Evangelions required in the wake of the Twelfth Angel's attack had long since been completed, leaving the small army of technicians that the organization employed with little to do besides perform routine maintenance. Indeed, many of the people who earned their living at NERV didn't have much work to worry about that day.

Operations Director Kaji was a glaring exception; his inbox had long ago overflowed and the stacks of paperwork on his desk were nearly at the ceiling.

_I swear to god, this crap __**breeds**__ when I'm not looking,_ the long-haired man thought as he affixed his signature to yet another official document.

If not for the teetering towers of paperwork that surrounded him, Kaji might've laughed at the idea.

Of course, he knew that his work wasn't really breeding, easy as it might be to imagine it. He _did_, however, suspect that the Commander was deliberately piling it on; so far as he knew, Misato had only faced _this_ amount of paper after a particularly disastrous battle. The first time Shinji and Asuka had confronted the Seventh Angel immediately sprang to mind.

_Ikari's a clever bastard, I'll certainly give him that,_ Kaji mused dourly. He had been practically chained to his desk for months now, which meant he'd had very little time to try and gather intelligence.

Of course, Misato's recent string of absences from work _wasn't_ helping his situation, as he couldn't even hand some of the burden off to her any longer.

The long-haired man finally allowed his dour thoughts to drive a sigh out of him. _Misato…_

Something was clearly wrong in his ex's life. That much was abundantly clear, especially to someone like Kaji, who knew her.

Misato often didn't come off as the most responsible person in the world, but he knew that she didn't tend to simply skip work for days. She never would've risen as high in the ranks as she had if that was the case.

_And she'd probably have gotten fired already if I hadn't lied to Commander Ikari about where she's been,_ Kaji mused.

Free time or no free time, he had to investigate the cause of her recent strange behavior. Despite how sour their relationship had become ever since he'd decided to evacuate Tokyo-3 in the face of the Tenth Angel's impending attack, he was worried about her.

That, and he _really_ needed someone to help him with all this damn paperwork!

The spy was just starting to consider the ways in which he might achieve his objective when the alarms started to blare.

"Damn," he cursed, immediately getting out of his chair and rushing toward the command center.

_I should have known that it had been quiet for too long,_ he thought as he ran through the halls. _We were overdue for another Angel._

"Status report," he demanded the moment he arrived.

"It's the Second Branch, sir," Makoto answered at once.

Kaji frowned. "The Second Branch?" he asked, bewildered. "Why would an Angel attack the States?"

"It wasn't an attack," Aoba said. "Or at least, we don't think it was. The Second Branch just…vanished."

Kaji frowned. "Vanished?" he asked.

"I think you might have to see this for yourself, sir," Makoto said quietly. "Let me playback the satellite footage."

The tech quickly typed a command into his keyboard, and a recording that had been taken from space appeared on the main screen. Kaji's eyes widened as it progressed.

"Dear god…" he breathed.

* * *

Ryoji Kaji thought he had seen raw, barely restrained chaos on the day he'd ordered the evacuation of Tokyo-3.

But the truth of the matter was…well, the truth was that he _had_ seen raw, barely restrained chaos on the day he'd ordered the evacuation of Tokyo-3; he'd been correct about that, actually.

What he'd been wrong about was his unconscious belief that he'd never have to confront such a maelstrom _again._

Less than fifteen minutes after the alarms had gone off, the calls had started pouring in from every corner of the world. The UN, every nation that contributed to NERV, most of the world's militaries…_everyone_ had called to demand to know what the hell was going on.

_Of course, all those calls somehow get transferred up to __**my**__ office,_ Kaji thought with a sigh. _Honestly, did the Secretary of Defense actually have to call me __**that**__?_

He shook his head to clear these thoughts from it. The Yanks were confused and angry about the event; it was understandable. Besides, he'd finally decided that enough was enough and had declared that he wasn't accepting any more calls that day.

_My voicemail's probably overflowing already,_ he thought, reaching into his pocket and taking out a pack of cigarettes.

A junior technician gave the Ops Director a dirty look as they passed one another in the halls. Already in a foul mood, Kaji just glared the young man, who quickly broke eye contact and retreated away from him.

Kaji pulled out a lighter and lit up as he walked into the small lab where Ritsuko and Maya were working. On the far wall, a large viewer was playing the satellite imagery of the Second Branch's abrupt destruction in a continuous loop.

"Can you turn that off?" he asked, visibly startling both ladies.

"Of course, sir," Ibuki answered after she had recovered, surprisingly not waiting for the go ahead from Ritsuko first.

Then again, perhaps it wasn't that shocking. It was hard to tell for certain in the dim light of the room, but Kaji thought that the cute brunette was looking rather pale. Maybe she disliked watching the footage as much as he did.

"Ah, Kaji, I was wondering when you'd show up," Ritsuko said.

He smiled, but he knew it probably looked as forced as it felt. "Well, whoever had between 7:00 and 7:30 just won the pool," he quipped, before allowing himself to become serious again. "So, what do you have, Rits?"

The bottle blonde sighed. "A whole lot of possibilities, but no firm answers, I'm afraid."

"How many is 'a lot'?" Kaji asked.

"The MAGI have been able to determine 32,768 possible reasons for the event that happened in Nevada, including sabotage," Maya chimed in.

"Sorry I asked," Kaji said. "Sabotage?"

"Unlikely," Ritsuko said. "Can I have one of those?" she pointed to the cigarette Kaji had clenched between his teeth.

"Be my guest," he said, fishing the pack out of his pocket again and shaking out a cancer stick for his old friend. "After today, I think we could all use a little nicotine fix. Speaking of which, want one, Lieutenant?"

"No, thank you, sir," Maya replied, with an expression of poorly concealed disgust.

He shrugged and lit Ritsuko's cigarette with his trusty Zippo. "So, probably not sabotage, then?" he asked.

Ritsuko shook her head, waving a dismissive hand. "It's just one of over 30,000 possibilities, and we have no evidence for it. It's just not impossible," she said. "It's far more likely that somebody screwed something up when they were hooking the S2 organ to Unit Four, and it caused a Dirac Sea to form just long enough to swallow the base."

"I see," Kaji said. "So what happens now?"

Ritsuko hesitated for a moment, glancing quickly at Maya before turning back to the new Ops Director. "You look like you could use a coffee, Kaji, and I know I can," she said. "Take a trip to the commissary with me?"

Kaji had been running off of caffeine for the past several hours and frankly thought he might explode if he put any more into his system. However, it was obvious that Ritsuko wanted to speak to him in relative privacy.

"Sure," he agreed.

Grinning roguishly, he offered the bottle blonde his arm. She smirked at him and ignored the gesture.

"I have a few…tasks that I have to see to after my little coffee break. You may have to continue without me for an hour or so, Maya," Ritsuko warned her protégé.

"I understand, sempai," the brunette said.

"After you," Kaji said, gesturing toward the door.

Rolling her eyes, Ritsuko left the small room, followed by Kaji. The two soon found themselves on one of NERV headquarters' trademark giant elevators.

"So, have you heard what the Americans have decided?" Ritsuko asked as they waited for the moving staircase to take them to their destination.

"I had to stop taking calls in order to stay sane," Kaji sighed. "All I got from them was a lot of yelling."

"Ah," Ritsuko said. "Well, they've basically decided that they don't want much of anything to do with NERV anymore."

Kaji's eyebrows went up. "They're not withdrawing from it, are they? If they do, and an Angel attacks the States, then NERV's under no obligation to help them," he pointed out.

Not that there was any reason to believe that any of the Angels would attack America, not when Adam was inside NERV Central. However, the Americans didn't _know_ that.

"No," Ritsuko shook her head. "They'll still provide their share of the funding for Project-E, and the First Branch will stay open. However, they want to get Unit Three off their soil as soon as possible."

"So they're sending it here," Kaji said. It wasn't a question.

"Bingo," Ritsuko said. "They're going to send it by air, probably because of what happened when we transported Unit Two by sea. It should arrive in two weeks. Maybe less. They really want to get rid of the thing."

"I guess it's understandable," Kaji said. "So, I assume we'll be finding a pilot for it."

"That's up to the Marduk Institute," Ritsuko replied.

_Which, of course, doesn't really exist,_ Kaji thought.

They reached the end of the escalator a minute or two later and then finished their trek to the NERV commissary. Once there, they quickly obtained two cups of the dark-colored swill that the organization tried to pass off as coffee.

"Let's have a seat," Ritsuko said quietly.

"Right," he agreed at once.

They picked a table in a dim corner and sat down, neither one saying anything at first. The dinner hour had passed, so the commissary was quiet, and the peace was a welcome respite for both of them.

Kaji took a sip of his drink and grimaced. Somehow, the decaf was even worse than the regular.

"So, what's on your mind, Rits?" he asked eventually.

This was what he was really interested in; the things she wanted to tell him that she hadn't want to speak about in front of Maya. He knew it couldn't be something incredibly secret—she would've taken him outside, away from the base's elaborate surveillance systems if that was the case—but that didn't mean it couldn't be interesting.

"I'm worried about Misato," Ritsuko said quietly, holding her Styrofoam cup in both hands and gazing down at the mud-colored liquid inside it. "She hasn't been returning my calls lately, I haven't seen her around lately, and I know that…"

Her gaze flicked toward one of the cameras in the room.

"I just know," Ritsuko finished, which would've been extremely cryptic if Kaji hadn't realized what she was talking about.

_Of course she'd know that those assignments I've been giving Misato to explain her absences are all bunk,_ he thought.

"Do you know why she's been like this?" Ritsuko asked.

"No, I don't," Kaji confessed. "She's not as…fond of me as she used to be, you know."

Ritsuko smiled at him, and the expression held equal parts sympathy and amusement. "I realize that, but I still thought you might know something," she said. "So, you really have no idea."

Kaji shook his head. "None," he said. "If I had to guess, I'd say it's some form of PTSD."

Ritsuko quirked an eyebrow. "Do you really think so?" she asked.

A small, rueful smile appeared on Kaji's face. "She really doesn't seem like to type suffer from that, does she?" he asked. "Still, I understand it can happen to anyone who's endured too many violent or traumatizing experiences, and Misato's certainly had her share of those."

The scientist nodded gravely. "Second Impact when she was still just a teenager," she said, "and I know she saw some pretty intense fighting when she worked in special ops for the UN armed forces."

"And until recently she's been commanding battles that decide the fate of the entire human species," Kaji said. "She obviously felt the pressure, since she decided to step down. Even now, though, she has to watch as a couple of teenagers she's gotten close to—maybe _too_ close to—risk their lives every time an Angel shows up. The waiting game with the Twelfth Angel might've just been the tipping point."

"I suppose," Ritsuko said, though she still looked dubious. Then she checked her watch and frowned. "Ugh, I have to go. The Commander wants to see me about something in ten minutes."

"Right," Kaji said. "We can figure out a way to help Misato later."

Ritsuko nodded absently and got up, stopping only to throw away her half-consumed cup of coffee before she left the room, entering the winding hallways of the base.

Secretly, she didn't hold out a whole lot of hope for getting Misato out of her funk. Their friendship demanded she try, of course, but the former Ops Director had always been incredibly willful. When Misato Katsuragi decided to do something (or refuse to do something, like come in to work), nobody but Misato Katsuragi could make her stop. That was the way it had always been, ever since Ritsuko had met her friend in college.

_Besides, even if she's amenable to our help, I don't know when Kaji or I will even have the __**time**__ to confront her,_ Ritsuko thought with a grimace as she approached the elevator that went to Terminal Dogma. _Things are going to be pretty damn busy here, and I know the Commanders are throwing every scrap of paper at Kaji that they can find._

She slid her ID card through a reader next to elevator, and the doors obediently opened for her. The scientist stepped inside, and she soon began her descent into the deepest, most secret location within NERV.

She was unsurprised to find the Commander waiting for her the moment the doors slid open again.

"Dr. Akagi," was Gendo's curt greeting.

The bottle blonde resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Here she was, alone in the dark with her lover, and the man couldn't even call her by her given name. She realized that Gendo detested mixing business with pleasure, but that was a little much.

_Not that he's so damn affectionate when we're off duty,_ she thought, before ruthlessly suppressing all of her silly, illogical emotions.

"Commander," she said.

"I need a status update on the progress of the Dummy System," he said.

Ritsuko nodded, having been fully aware that this was coming. With this unexpected event leaving both SEELE and the States twitchy, the Commander would need every ace up his sleeve that he could possibly get.

"Of course, sir," she said. "Follow me, please."

She led Gendo to a very large, very dark room and flipped a heavy switch with a grunt of effort. Lights mounted on the high ceiling began to come on, one row at a time, but even these couldn't completely dispel the darkness in the now dim room. The lights did, however, manage to illuminate a large metal cylinder which was suspended above the floor by a pair of huge clamps. The thing looked exactly like the standard entry plug from the outside, except that it had been painted entirely red.

"This is the Dummy Plug prototype, Commander," Ritsuko said, gesturing up at it. "Rei's personal pilot data has been downloaded into it, but we can't truly digitize a human mind. In the end, this is nothing but a pale duplication that crudely emulates the pilot's thinking process. It's still only a machine."

"It transmits a signal to EVA. If the Evangelion believes that it's a real pilot and synchs with it, then that's enough," Gendo said simply. "Load the data into Units One and Two."

"But, sir, we still haven't worked all the bugs out," Ritsuko protested.

"I said do it," Gendo said in a low growl.

Ritsuko couldn't help but flinch back, marveling at how damn terrifying the Commander could be with just a few quiet words. She didn't think anyone else she knew could sound quite so threatening.

"Y-Yes, sir."

Gendo nodded. "I've delegated the task of transporting Unit Three to the UN. They, in turn, will likely delegate the matter to the US," he said. "You will take care of it."

"Of course," Ritsuko said. "We'll perform the modifications and activation in Matsushiro."

"And the test pilot?" Gendo asked.

"Use of the Dummy System is not recommended," Ritsuko warned at once. "One of our pilot candidates…"

"Will be chosen as the Fourth," Gendo said. "Very well. See to it, Dr. Akagi."

"Yes, sir," Ritsuko replied. "There's one candidate whose core can be prepared immediately."

"Good," was Gendo's only response.

* * *

Corporal Inaba really, really hated his job.

Admittedly, it wasn't the worse position in the entire JSSDF, and he would never pretend otherwise. No, the VTOL pilots and ground pounders who had the dubious honor of backing up NERV (and, by extension, that arrogant bastard Gendo Ikari), held that title these days, so far as he was concerned.

_Of course, I wouldn't have wanted to be one of poor slobs that the brass sent into the meat grinder against the Third Angel, either,_ he decided.

No, Inaba's job didn't entail providing support to the regular military's rival NERV, or throwing himself at an enemy who would kill him without even noticing he'd been there in the first place. He was thankful for that, but it still didn't mean he had to like his job.

Inaba was a member of a team called the Stargazers.

_Awesome name. Really lame job,_ he thought, poking at nearby bush with his rifle.

Ever since an asteroid had slammed into the South Pole and royally messed up the world, people had become a lot more concerned about death from above crashing down on them. As a result, the military had started paying more attention to skies.

"Just in case any more deathrocks come barreling toward us," Inaba muttered aloud.

The story didn't end there, however. If it had, Inaba probably wouldn't have been out in the middle of nowhere, utterly hating his job.

Nobody really knew _where_ the Angels had come from, but the general consensus among both the military brass and the general populace was that they were probably extraterrestrials.

"So, of course, the only _sane_ thing to do is get super, crazy paranoid about anything bigger than a basketball that falls out of the sky," he grumbled sarcastically.

The Stargazers' job was to track any and all objects that fell to Japan from outer space and make sure that an Angel hadn't hatched out of it or something. Usually, it was a simple, if pretty dull task. The tech people were usually very good at calculating where a meteorite would land, and all Inaba and his colleagues had to do was go out and get it.

Usually.

Some time ago, the Stargazers had picked up an object that was bigger than a Volkswagen careening toward Japan. The lab boys had punched the numbers and calculated where it would land, as always, and everything had seemed normal.

_At least it did, until we went there and found squat,_ Inaba thought.

At that point, the corporal would've frankly called it quits. Every other bit of space debris they'd found had been just a rock, not the larval sack of some alien horror. He'd been willing to bet that this one was equally mundane.

The brass, however, had felt differently. Unfortunately, they really didn't have any Plan B for finding extraterrestrial objects once the big, expensive computers totally failed to accurately project their landing sites.

_Which means that poor slobs like me have to just fart around in the middle of nowhere all day,_ Inaba thought, wiping some sweat from his brow.

Having grown up in the countryside, Inaba had no enmity toward the great outdoors. Unfortunately, some idiot had decided that he and his fellow Martian rock hunters should conduct these searches while in full combat gear, just in case they encountered an unfriendly alien. Which meant wearing over fifty pounds of gear all day…while tromping around in 90+ degree weather.

"_Not_ my idea of a pleasant—_whoa!_" his gripe to no one in particular was cut off as he tripped and very nearly went sprawling.

Regaining his balance, Inaba frowned and looked behind himself, wondering what he'd tripped on. He only grew more puzzled when he saw that there appeared to be a slight hump in the ground.

"The hell…?" he muttered to himself, frowning as he looked at the odd shape of the land.

Then, the answer hit him. It was a trench. A long trench that had probably been created when something big had crash landed here and slid across the ground. He just hadn't realized at first because the grass had grown back over the bit of scarred earth.

"Damn, it's here? The boys at the lab were _really_ off this time," he said to himself as he started to follow the trench. "Well, at least this stupid hunt is finally over with."

He soon reached the end of the trench, but he didn't find a big chunk of rock at the termination point. Instead, he found what appeared to be the remains of a much larger trench, which was roughly perpendicular to the first one. This one, however, had been filled in by someone or something. The ground was visibly raised.

Inaba grabbed his walkie-talkie and twisted the knob to turn it on. "This is Corporal Inaba," he spoke into it. "Headquarters, do you copy?"

"Reading you loud and clear, Corporal."

"I think I've found something out here," Inaba said, "and it's not…the usual. It might be big. Very big."

* * *

Shinji usually didn't go to NERV unless there was an Angel attack or a synch test. There was just no need for him to, otherwise. In fact, he was realizing that he usually didn't even go to the parts of the base that weren't near the cages.

Nevertheless, he was easily able to navigate the place; the layout of Central Dogma was actually quite simple once you got used to it.

_I can't believe that Misato used to get lost here just about every other day,_ he thought, then winced. Thinking about his guardian was actually rather painful these days, especially when he ended up comparing what she'd been to what she was like lately.

He arrived outside his destination, Kaji's office, and took a deep breath. He knocked on the door.

"Come in," the new Ops Director's tired sounding voice answered.

"Kaji?" Shinji asked as he entered.

The man's head popped out from behind the massive stack of paperwork that sat on his desk, and he smiled. "Ah, Shinji, just the man I was hoping to see," he said.

"I need to talk to you," the Third Child said.

Picking up on the seriousness in Shinji's voice, Kaji became a bit less cheery. "I had wanted to have a chat with you, too, actually," he said. "Tell you what, let's get ourselves something to drink, then go outside to talk. I could use some fresh air."

"All right," Shinji agreed.

The two took a trip to a nearby group of vending machines, then headed outside the base. They soon ended up at a bench that sat near the edge of the Geofront lake.

_It's very pretty here,_ Shinji mused as he looked out at the water. _I wonder why people don't come here often. Probably too busy._

"So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?" the pilot asked.

Kaji cracked open his can of coffee and took a long drink before answering. "Shinji, you've heard about what happened to the Second Branch, right?" he asked.

"Just that it was destroyed in some kind of disaster," he replied. "A disaster that involved Unit Four somehow."

Kaji nodded. "That's about the long and short of it," he said. "Because of that, the Americans have decided to unload Unit Three on us, in case something happens with that one, too."

"I see," Shinji replied. "So…they're going to find a pilot for it?"

"They already found one," Kaji said grimly. "Shinji…they selected your friend Toji for the job. He's agreed to be the Fourth Child."

Shinji's eyes widened. "What? Why…why would he do that?" he sputtered.

He could've seen Kensuke leaping at the chance to pilot an Evangelion, but not Toji. The jock had already been hurt by EVA, and he had no delusions that being a pilot was in any way glorious.

"NERV offered to transfer his sister to a top of the line hospital, all expenses paid," Kaji said quietly. "I'm told he immediately accepted once that was on the table."

Shinji leaned back in the bench, suddenly feeling sick. The unopened can of tea in his hands seemed to have transformed into a block of ice, and even the sunshine didn't appear as bright as it had a moment ago.

_Toji's putting himself in danger so his sister can get better,_ he thought. _He could get killed trying to fix something that's __**my**__ fault._

"I'm sorry," Kaji said. "If I had any control over the selection process, I would've vetoed your friend, but that's above my pay grade."

Shinji said nothing, still caught in the grip of shock.

"I know that this is some very unpleasant news for you, to put it mildly," Kaji added. "I felt that you deserved to know though, especially since it would've been an even more unpleasant _surprise_ if nobody told you."

"I…thank you," Shinji said, and even though he was still stunned, he had to admit that the long-haired man definitely had a point _there_.

They fell silent for several moments after that. Eventually, Shinji opened his can of tea and took several sips without really tasting it. His whole mind was occupied with what he'd just learned. He kept trying to figure out some way to get Toji out of having to pilot without getting his little sister kicked out of the hospital in the process. Unfortunately, his ideas kept hitting dead ends before they were even fully formed.

_It's not fair,_ Shinji thought. _Toji doesn't deserve this. He shouldn't have to suffer to get his sister's injuries treated properly. If anyone should, it should be me._

"So, you had something you wanted to speak me about, too?" Kaji asked after several minutes.

"Oh, yes," Shinji said, realizing to his further shame that he'd forgotten all about his guardian for a moment. "It's about Misato."

"Ah," Kaji replied. It was only one syllable, but even Shinji, who was not the most adept individual when it came to reading people, could hear many layers of meaning in it.

"First, I wanted to thank you for covering for her," he said. "I know things have been a little…rocky between you two lately."

Kaji smiled wistfully. "Well, we had some very good times together, back in college," he said. "Very good times. I guess I'll always have some affection for Misato, because of that."

Shinji felt a brief but intense stab of envy. Even though he had ultimately lost it and didn't seem likely to reclaim it, Kaji had still shared something with Misato that the EVA pilot knew he never would.

Then the moment passed, and concern quickly replaced jealousy.

"I'm worried about Misato," he confessed. "She's been drinking a lot lately. Much more than usual. She always liked her beer, of course, but she's drunk more often than not these days. And when she's not drunk, she's usually sleeping it off. I don't even know why she's been like this lately. She just…she just has!"

Shinji realized that he'd said all this very quickly, and he flushed and looked at his feet. He knew that this was necessary, but airing Misato's dirty laundry to someone she didn't seem all that fond of these days still felt like betrayal.

Kaji shook his head. "I was afraid it was something like that," he said.

"I don't know what to do," Shinji said miserably. "By this point, I think Misato might need an intervention or something. I know it sounds weird, but-"

"You're probably right," Kaji interrupted. "Okay, we'll get her to sober up long enough to have a talk with her. Rits is worried, too, so I know she'll be willing to help. I'm sure Asuka would also participate, if I asked her."

Shinji couldn't help but smirk slightly. _Yeah, I'm sure she would._ "When?" he asked. "When can we do this?"

Kaji sighed, and suddenly he looked very tired. "Unfortunately, both Rits and I are stuck pulling overtime until the Unit Three activation test is finished," he said. "As soon as that's done with, though, I'll rally the troops. You just watch over Misato until then as best you can."

"Okay," Shinji agreed at once. "After the test, then."

Kaji nodded, then got off the bench. "Well, much as I hate to leave you and this lovely weather behind, my work won't do itself, unfortunately," he said.

"Right," Shinji said. "Thanks, Kaji."

"No thanks necessary, Shinji," he said. "After all, we're both just trying to look after someone we care about, right?"

The Third Child nodded, and the two went their separate ways. Shinji headed toward the tram that would take him back to Tokyo-3 with a sense of hope that he hadn't felt for a long time.

_All I need to do is wait until the activation test is finished with,_ he thought.

Of course, though he had no idea of it, 'after the test' would be far too late.

* * *

A few days had passed since Inaba had made his discovery in the middle of nowhere, and that location had officially become somewhere as a result. However, that "somewhere" was highly classified and, in fact, didn't officially exist.

_Some locales just can't catch a break,_ Corporal Inaba decided as he looked at the site.

It was very different from when he'd first found it.

The entire area had been quarantined, with the public having been fed some story about a chemical spill. Several large pieces of equipment were now scattered around, along with dozens of people in hazmat suits.

Perhaps most significantly, the large trench, the one that someone had filled in, had been dug up once again. This had exposed the ruined space ship that had been hidden under ground.

_Found an alien space ship. I still don't freaking believe it,_ Inaba thought. _And the worst part is, I can't __**tell**__ anybody about it! My parents will still think all I ever do is go looking for Moon rocks!_

Shaking his head, he trudged toward one of the scientists the military had called in to work at the site. Like everyone else present, the man was wearing a bulky hazmat suit, but Inaba was able to identify him as one of the eggheads by the clipboard in his hand.

"So, what's the story, doc?" he asked. "Any chance we'll be able to ditch the plastic clothes soon?"

"Doubtful," the scientist replied, scribbling a few notes down. "We've taken some readings, and that ship is leaking a small but detectable amount of radiation from somewhere. Probably the reactor or fuel tank."

"Reactor?" Inaba asked nervously. "Doc, there isn't some kind of, I don't know, antimatter or something inside this tub, is there?"

"Most definitely not," the scientist replied, sounding mildly annoyed at the distraction by this point. "With the ship clearly non-operational as it is, any antimatter inside it would've escaped containment and caused a very large explosion a long time ago. More likely there's something in there that human science simply isn't familiar with yet."

"Ah," Inaba replied, not sure if that response reassured him or not.

He didn't have much more time to ponder the matter, though. A few seconds later, the colonel in charge of the whole operation (Inaba still couldn't believe a full colonel of the JSSDF had shown up to supervise a bunch of soldiers while they basically dug a ditch), shouted an order. A man sitting behind the controls of a small crane pulled a lever, and the broken, dirty space ship was lifted out of the hole in the ground with some very heavy chains.

"God damn," he muttered to himself as he finally saw the entire thing, his tone almost reverent.

Then he smirked. Small wonder now that the Stargazers had had so much trouble finding this thing. Unlike all the space rocks, this thing had once had the ability to change its trajectory through the air, even as it came in for a crash landing.

Of course, what remained to be seen was how much it would change the trajectory of humanity and the war that humanity was currently fighting. Inaba wasn't an idiot; he knew that the brass back at JSSDF Central Command _had_ to be fantasizing about finding advanced technology inside the ship and making super weapons that would give the regular military the ability to kill the Angels.

Inaba liked the idea of rendering NERV obsolete and showing up that smug bastard Ikari as much as anybody in the JSSDF, but he _really_ hoped that nothing nasty came from messing around with the alien ship.

He shook his head. _Not like it's any concern of mine,_ he thought. _Pretty soon, they'll take this thing away to some top secret lab somewhere, and I'll be under strict orders to never so much as think about it ever again._

Much like with the scientist's dismissal of the possibility of antimatter, Inaba wasn't sure if that comforted or terrified him.

* * *

The day had finally arrived.

Unit Three had finally arrived in Japan from the United States, and the auxiliary NERV base in Matsushiro was bustling with activity as they prepared to turn the thing on for the first time.

In the midst of so many feverishly working individuals, Kaji found himself feeling exceptionally pointless.

"Why did they even need me to be here?" he wondered aloud to Ritsuko. "There's no battle to command. They need you and your people to work this thing, not me."

"You're here to provide pseudo-paternal support to our greenhorn pilot. Now stop pestering me so I can do my job," Ritsuko said, not even bothering to peel her eyes away from her computer monitor as she spoke.

Kaji rolled his eyes, but he then pushed the button to open up a radio link with the entry plug. "Suzuhara, can you hear me?" he asked.

"Loud and clear, um, sir," the voice of the jock replied.

The long-haired man smiled. "You can just call me Kaji, kid. I don't run a particularly formal operation," he said. "So, how are you holding up?"

"Me? I'm fine. Just fine," he said. "After all, if Shinji can do this, it should be no problem for me, right?"

That last part sounded more like Toji was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince Kaji, and the new Ops Director couldn't help but smirk slightly. The Fourth Child was a real macho man all right.

_That bravado might actually help him when he has to grit his teeth and bear this, at least in the beginning,_ he thought. _I'd better watch to make sure it doesn't get out of control, though._

"Glad to hear you're okay," Kaji said. "Listen, Suzuhara. In a couple of minutes, Ritsuko and her science buddies are going to start spouting all kinds of crazy techno-jargon. Don't let it intimidate you. Just stay calm, and the activation should go smoothly. Once Unit Three's turned on, we'll run a couple of tests. After that, you're done for the day."

"Okay, sounds good," Toji said.

A sly grin formed on Kaji's face. "Of course, after _that_, your training officially begins," he said. "We're going to need to bring you up to speed fast. I may have to put Asuka in charge of your instruction."

"Oh, dear God, no!" Toji exclaimed, looking horrified.

Kaji had to resist the urge the laugh. He knew only too well of the animosity that existed between Asuka and Toji, though he usually only heard the redhead's side of the stories concerning their disagreements. The Second Child had been utterly _horrified_ to discover that the jock had been named the Fourth.

"Well, perhaps Shinji and I will be able to show you the ropes properly," the new Ops Director said. "If you learn quickly enough."

"Oh, I can do that," Toji said earnestly. "I can learn fast when I need to, especially when the subject doesn't come out of a book."

"Glad to hear it," Kaji said. "Ah, I think they're starting."

He glanced over at Ritsuko, who had indeed begun to receive multiple status reports in the techno-jargon Kaji had spoken about moments earlier.

The new Ops Director couldn't understand half of it, but he didn't really need to. A mixture of tension and expectation was building in the air, like an electric charge. Everyone knew that probably nothing would happen. However, with Evangelion, there was always a small but still significant chance that it would go nuts the moment it was activated, because they simply didn't understand the damn things as well as they should.

_As if what happened in Nevada wasn't proof enough of __**that**__,_ Kaji thought.

"Proceeding to third stage neural links," a nearby tech announced. "The pilot should clear the absolute borderline in there…two…one…"

If the woman ever said "zero", nobody got the chance to hear it, because alarms started blaring inside the control room at that very moment. Yet, even over that ruckus, Kaji could still hear the groaning of metal bending and the sound of heavy machinery being trashed.

And it was coming from the direction of the cage.

"What's going on?" Kaji bellowed over the noise.

"Unit Three has begun to move!" one of the techs shouted back.

"Berserker?" the Ops Director demanded.

"No, something's different this time!" Ritsuko said, practically pushing one of the techs out of his chair and to the floor in her effort to get to his station. Her fingers flew across the poor man's keyboard. "We're detecting a blue pattern! It's an Angel!"

"Shit," Kaji cursed. "Deactivate Unit Three! Cut the nerve connections!"

The techs sprang into action, but those horrible sounds coming from the cage didn't stop. "Unit Three is rejecting the signal!"

"Just shut the damn thing down!" Kaji yelled. "I don't care how you do it, _just turn it off!_"

The tech crew immediately went to the task, if they hadn't already been trying to do what he'd ordered. Unfortunately, they seemed to be having very little success.

"There's an energy buildup inside the cage!" Ritsuko warned.

"What does that mean?" Kaji asked.

Unit Three itself answered the question before the scientist could. An explosion tore through the Matsushiro base, and for several hours, Kaji knew no more.

* * *

Misato returned to the waking world slowly, and only with great reluctance. She opened her bleary eyes and looked at her surroundings dumbly. It took her a second to realize that she was in her kitchen, seated by the table.

_When did I come here?_ She wondered, since her last memory placed her inside her bedroom. _And what the heck woke me up?_

The first question would remain forever a mystery, but the second was answered a moment later by the ringing of her phone. The purple-haired woman winced at the sound and covered her ears.

"Ow," she groaned.

The phone rang a few times before the answering machine picked up. She heard a cheerful recording of her own voice telling the caller to wait until after the beep, and she sighed in relief. Taking her hands away from her ears, Misato lay her head down on the table, making sure to avoid the small puddle of drool she'd left there. She should still be drunk enough to catch a few more Z's without suffering through any nightmares.

_I'm sure it's not that important anyway,_ she thought.

Then she heard the beep, and the voice of Hyuga Makoto filled her kitchen.

"**Major Katsuragi? Are you there?**" he asked tentatively. "**I tried your cell, but you didn't answer. Please pick up if you're there, there's an emergency. The Matsushiro base attempted the Unit Three activation test with Pilot Suzuhara earlier, and it looks like something went terribly wrong. We don't have the details yet, but the MAGI have picked up a blue pattern, and the base has gone silent. Kaji was at Matsushiro. We could really use your help right now, Major.**"

Misato, of course, didn't just remain sitting at the kitchen table the whole time the tech was recording this message. She was on her feet the moment Hyuga said the words "Pilot Suzuhara."

Unfortunately, she had crashed to the kitchen floor by the time he got to the part about the blue pattern.

"Oh…I'm more drunk than I thought," she said. Then she noticed her loyal penguin companion standing right outside the door to his fridge. "Pen-Pen, when did I stop drinking last night?" she demanded.

The water fowl gave her an inscrutable look and remained completely silent. Then he reached out and hit the button that opened the door to his small room. A moment later, he was gone. Misato threw a dirty look in his direction.

Then she got up, having to hold onto her kitchen table as she stood to keep herself from falling over again.

"Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. "Time to move out."

She had to go and help, but not as Misato Katsuragi. Even if she was in any state to report for duty in her role as NERV's tactical consultant, she could do far more good as the Green Lantern.

Emerald light flared around her form, and when it dimmed, Misato had vanished, replaced by the city's jade superwoman. She turned toward the door to her veranda, her feet rose off the ground…

…and suddenly she found herself sprawled out on her living room floor, her face buried in the carpet. She honestly had no idea how that had happened; it seemed as though she had gone from hovering in her kitchen to this undignified position with no time passing in between.

"Ring!" she barked. "What the hell is wrong?"

_"Your current inebriated state is handicapping your ability to focus your mind and your willpower,"_ it answered. _"As a result, your ability to utilize this ring has been sharply reduced."_

"Are you saying I'm too drunk to use you properly?" she demanded, her eyes widening in horror.

_"Yes."_

"Damn it," she swore, softly, but with great vehemence. "I can't help."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I warned you that the Thirteenth Angel was right around the corner last time, didn't I?

I had originally planned to end the previous chapter with Misato's nightmare, in order to foreshadow this turn of events, but I just couldn't see how to do it. Going straight from "Shinji's saved!" to "Misato needs booze to sleep now, _lots_ of booze" in the same chapter would've been far too abrupt, so I moved it to the start of this chapter.

Anyway, tune in next time to see the aftermath from _this_ mess, and remember, now it's the _Fourteenth_ Angel that's just around the corner. Hopefully, that goes better for our heroine.

Thanks as always to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta readers as well. Now for a little fun to counteract that downer of a chapter.

* * *

Omake

Official Protest

"There, done with that chapter," a certain writer of Evangelion fan fiction commented as he made the final tweaks to his latest bit of work.

The young was pleased with himself for getting that done; it felt like he hadn't updated one of his regular fics for a long time. His loyal (and smart, and charming, and very good-looking) reviewers deserved better than that.

He was just getting ready to post the chapter when the door behind him was thrown open with some much force that it smacked the wall loudly. He winced, hoping the doorknob hadn't broken the plaster.

"What the _hell_, Mike?"

Even before the shout, the writer didn't need to turn around to know who had just barged in. He did turn around, though. Keeping his back to "guest" would've been just rude, after all.

"You know, Misato, you really shouldn't be here," he commented. "I mean, Green Lantern doesn't have the same fourth-wall breaching powers that She-Hulk—"

The woman in green never gave him the chance to finish, instead grabbing his shoulders and shaking him roughly.

"Never mind that!" she demanded. "What were you thinking with this chapter?"

"I take it you don't like it?" Mike asked innocently.

"To put it mildly!" Misato barked. "Last chapter I was kicking Angel ass, taking names, overcoming my personal demons, and saving Shinji! And now the story suddenly got all dark! What's that about?"

"Uh, Misato, you have _seen_ canon Evangelion, right?" Mike asked. "It's not exactly new for things to abruptly go downhill around the time the Thirteenth Angel shows up."

"Well, that's true, but—"

"Also, let's face, you usually get a pass for, you know, having a drinking problem," Mike continued. "Come to think of it, in the fics I've read, I've seen Asuka get crap for simply cluttering up the apartment with her junk a lot more often than I've seen you face consequences for your barely controlled alcohol consumption."

"Never mind Asuka and her stupid boxes! You—"

"Plus, things need to get grim at least every now and then, so you can, you know, rise from the ashes and stuff," Mike pointed out. "It's the job of superheroes to salvage seemingly unsalvageable situations."

"So do I salvage this one?" Misato demanded.

"Well…"

"I knew it!" Misato snapped. "You rewrite this damn chapter _right now_, Mister!"

"No," Mike replied.

"Let me rephrase that," Misato rose her fist, and her power ring glowed menacingly. "Rewrite the damn chapter right now!"

There was a tense pause.

"LOOK!" Mike yelled, pointing behind Misato. "It's Sinestro!"

"_What? **Where?**_" Misato squawked, spinning around.

Of course, the renegade from the Green Lantern Corps was nowhere to be found. Mike used the moment he'd gained to bolt into his "safe room," which had received a generous coat of daffodil colored paint.

"Hey!" Misato shouted, running over to the door and pounding on it with her fists. "Open up!"

"Hell no!"

"Fine!" Misato growled. "Then I'll just have Asuka break the door down for me!"

Mike laughed. "I doubt Asuka will be willing to pick a fight with the author over this chapter," he said. "Besides, even if she does, I have kryptonite in here!"

Misato's hands balled into fists. "I'll get Rits to do it, then!"

"You think that with all the quirks that scarab of hers has, I haven't got a way to stop it from attacking me?" Mike asked.

"Maya?" Misato suggested.

"Magic talisman," Mike answered smugly.

Misato thought for a moment, then a sly smile appeared on her face. "What about Rei?" she asked.

"Oh, well, uh…"

"Ha! Thought so! I'll be right back!"

"Crap," the writer muttered to himself. "I _knew_ I forgot about something when I made this little bunker…"


	11. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Ten:** Willpower

The interior of the Kiyoharu Innovations building felt familiar, Shiro Tokita decided as he walked down its halls with his new boss. Not because he knew it so well—he'd only visited twice before for interviews—but because it was so similar to the Hokkaido Heavy Industries building.

The man who'd been the public face of the Jet Alone project felt his jaw tighten as he thought of that.

"I have to admit, Tanesada-san, I was quite surprised by your offer," he said. "Pleasantly so, of course, but very surprised."

Haru Tanesada, a pleasantly plump, bespectacled man in an immaculately tailored suit smiled at his newest employee. "And why do you say that, Tokita-san?" he asked.

Tokita shrugged; he was sure that Tanesada knew. The man would have to be a complete fool to not know, but he'd apparently felt that politeness mandated that he downplay the debacle at Hokkaido Heavy Industries.

As a result, politeness now also mandated that Tokita explain something his one man audience already knew. He struggled for a few moments, trying to figure out the most politic way to put it into words.

"I was dismissed from my previous job under…less than auspicious circumstances," was what he finally settled on.

It was a rather massive understatement, of course. The board of directors at Hokkaido Heavy Industries had decided to pin all the blame for the Jet Alone prototype's spectacular failure on him, and they had been all too quick to fire him accordingly.

Of course, getting terminated from HHI—which had ultimately gone bankrupt after seeing the massive investment it had made in the JA project go up in smoke—had been rather like getting thrown over the side of a sinking ship. He would've ended up unemployed either way, but being fired rather than laid off certainly hadn't helped him in his quest to find a new job. He'd been living off his savings and severance package until just recently.

"Ah, yes, the Jet Alone demonstration, sorry business, that," Tanesada said, as though it had been a minor thing, not a massive embarrassment that had sounded the death knell of a major corporation. "Well, here at Kiyoharu Innovations we try and focus on the future, not the past. And we think that your particular expertise, Tokita-san, makes you the perfect leader for our next big project."

"Yes, about that," Tokita said with a slight frown, "I'm afraid that I'm still not very clear on what exactly you want me to do. What is this project?"

Tanesada had been maddeningly evasive about that through the entire interview process. Indeed, Tokita might've considered the lack of information to be a deal breaker if he'd had any other potential prospects on the horizon.

"Ah, yes, I suppose it's high time we let you in our secret here," Tanesada said, clearly in good humor.

Tokita nodded and followed his new boss until they reached a large room filled with bustling workers. At the center of the whole thing was the wreck of some kind of bullet shaped…thing. Tokita could only assume it had been some kind of vehicle.

"Sir?" he asked, frowning.

"Not long ago, the JSSDF dug this thing up in a remote part of Kanagawa Prefecture," Tanesada explained. "They have reason to believe that it, and its now deceased pilot, are not from this world."

Tokita blinked. "Extraterrestrials?"

"Exactly," Tanesada nodded, a smile on his face. "Anyway, they've hired us to take it apart and see if we can salvage anything interesting from the craft. They're hoping we'll develop some very useful technology."

Tokita arched an eyebrow, easily reading between the lines. The JSSDF was a branch of the military, and as such, they were doubtlessly interested in weapons. Not just any weapons, either; there was only one reason why Kiyoharu Innovations would specifically want him for this job.

_They want something so powerful that it could be an alternative to the Evangelions,_ he thought.

After a brief moment of consideration, Tokita found that he was okay with this. More than okay with it, in fact. He had always suspected that NERV had had a hand in the Jet Alone's bizarre but ultimately harmless malfunction, but Ikari had pulled strings to kill the investigation into the matter before it could uncover anything substantive. In a very real way, the massive blow to his reputation, as well as his prolonged period of unemployment, had been the fault of NERV.

Tokita hadn't dared to entertain any hope that he'd be able to strike back at the organization for what they'd done to him, but now that he had an opportunity to do just that before him, he certainly wasn't going to walk away.

He turned to Tanesada. "Can I start today?"

* * *

Misato Katsuragi was not feeling well.

The former Operations Director of NERV Central had forced herself to shower, get dressed, and get to headquarters as soon as she was sober enough to walk a straight line, despite the considerable protests her whole body had offered. Even now, her head was pounding and she felt nauseous; she wasn't sure if she was still hung over or if she was suffering from symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.

Of course, the physical ailments she was dealing with weren't the worst part of her day. Not even _close_.

"Oh my god," she breathed, her eyes glued to a recording of the last Angel battle.

"You don't have to watch this, Major," Makoto said, looking very uncomfortable. "I can give you a run down on the whole thing."

"No," Misato murmured softly, "I need to see this with my own eyes. You can leave if you'd like, though."

The bespectacled tech who'd been good enough to set up the replay for her looked very much like he wanted to retreat from the tactical analysis room. However, he must've felt obligated to remain, because he just shook his head.

"No, that's all right," he said.

Misato barely heard him. The battle had reached the point where the possessed Unit Three was strangling Unit One. The Commander was yelling at him to fight, but Shinji was refusing to even defend himself.

She knew what was coming next; she had gotten somebody to give her the basic rundown of the battle the moment she'd gotten to headquarters. However, that didn't make the prospect of seeing it any easier.

On the screen, EVA Unit One's eyes turned bright red as the Dummy System took over the job of piloting. Misato swallowed, feeling her stomach lurch unpleasantly at the sight.

_No,_ she thought as the test type Evangelion put its hands around Unit Three's neck. The designs of the two EVA's were so similar that they were almost mirror images aside from the color of the armor. It was like watching two brothers fight to death.

Then Unit Three's neck snapped with a sickening crack.

Shinji's accompanying scream of horror brought tears to her eyes. She refused to let them fall only because Makoto was still there, and she didn't want one of her subordinates to see her crying.

"God," she breathed.

"Yeah," Makoto agreed silently.

Yet the battle wasn't over yet. The Commander refused to let it be over yet, despite his son begging him to deactivate the Dummy System. Gendo Ikari met all those pleas with stony silence, and Unit One continued to mercilessly destroy its foe, ripping Unit Three limb from limb and painting the surrounding countryside red with its blood.

Finally, all that was left was its entry plug. Unit One removed it from the remains of its enemy and held the metal cylinder tightly in its fist. Shinji's cries for his father to show mercy and end the battle reached a crescendo.

_CRACK!_

Shinji screamed more loudly than ever.

"Enough. Turn it off," Misato said, and Hyuga rushed to comply.

She had already heard about how Shinji had snapped after discovering that the pilot of Unit Three was Toji, his best friend. She didn't need to see him threatening to destroy NERV headquarters in his pain and grief, only for him to be shut down by his father like he was throwing a simple temper tantrum.

If she saw that, she probably _would_ start crying, no matter how hard she tried to stop herself.

She took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to calm herself. "Where's Toji?" she asked.

"He's in the Medical Ward," Makoto answered. "He's still unconscious. He'll live, but his leg was totally crushed. They had to amputate it." He answered her unspoken question in a soft voice.

She nodded. "Thank you, Hyuga," she said. "I'll let you get back to your other duties. I'm sure you've got a lot to do."

"Ma'am," Makoto nodded, recognizing the dismissal for what it was. He quickly retreated from the room, leaving her alone.

Once he was gone, Misato made her way to a nearby chair and collapsed into it, covering her face with her hands. She could feel the warm metal of her currently invisible power ring against her forehead.

_It didn't have to be this way,_ was the only thing she could think. _I could have stopped it, if only I was in any shape to do anything at the time._

But that was the problem: she had been almost blind drunk when the Thirteenth Angel had made its presence known. She had been on one continuous bender for weeks…and it was all because she'd given into her fear.

It would almost have been laughable if it wasn't so tragic. After she'd made such a bold speech to the Twelfth Angel's avatars—how she'd asserted that she _did_ have the ability to overcome great fear—she'd let her terror of the nightmare it had shown her paralyze her. She had let it drive her more deeply into the bottle than she'd ever ventured before.

"Maybe I have the ability to overcome great fear," she mumbled to herself, "but I sure as hell haven't been using it lately."

Unfortunately, the result of her trying to run away from her fear by getting drunk all the time had been a disaster almost as great as the one she'd been afraid of in the first place.

"Damn it," she hissed, her hands balling into fists.

She had two choices in front of her now. She could go back to her apartment and get thoroughly soused again. If she was lucky, that would get her a few hours of sweet oblivion, time in which her guilt at having failed to prevent this disaster wasn't clawing at her.

Or, she could get up and confront this, try to mitigate the damage that had been done as best she could.

It wasn't an easy decision. Misato knew what the _right_ thing to do was; it didn't take a genius to figure out that much. However, the thought of looking into Shinji's eyes while feeling the weight of her failure pressing down on her, the idea of going to see Toji and seeing the stump of his amputated leg…just thinking about it made her stomach churn unpleasantly.

The possibility of escaping everything, if only for a little while, was extremely tempting.

_Oh, for god's sakes, haven't you learned __**anything**__? _A voice that sounded strangely like Abin Sur piped up inside her mind.

Of course, that was what made it impossible for her to just go home to her apartment and get soused again; she _had_ learned something. If there was one thing her experiences within the Twelfth Angel (as well as this recent catastrophe) made exceedingly clear, it was that only bad things happened when she failed to stand up to her fears.

Which, she decided, meant one thing.

"Time to prove this damn ring right," she said as she got to her feet.

* * *

Shinji Ikari's world was dark, both literally and figuratively.

After his father had brought his hysterical attempt at destroying headquarters to an abrupt end, the Third Child had woken up in a pitch black room. He'd explored it as best he could, feeling his way around the place, and had discovered that it was smaller than some closets and had nothing besides a hard cot and a locked door.

Obviously, he was in some kind of holding cell.

He didn't care about that too much. Even he was appalled at what he'd tried to do to NERV headquarters, though he would've felt a lot better about the world in general if he'd thought his father was _also_ stewing a cell somewhere.

He snorted. "As if," he grumbled to himself.

No, there was no question in his mind that the Commander was currently sitting in his mammoth office doing…whatever the hell it was he did in there, like it was a perfectly normal day.

When Shinji Ikari got frightened and did something cowardly, he paid the price for it. When Shinji Ikari snapped and did something crazy, he was taken to task for it.

When _Gendo_ Ikari did something horrible—like abandoning his only child, getting a fourteen-year-old girl horribly injured, blackmailing a minor into fighting a damn war, or damn near _killing_ one pilot with another pilot's hands—_nothing_ happened to him.

That was one of the things that was really getting to him. Shinji would never forget the feeling of Unit Three's neck snapping in "his" hands; he was absolutely certain that the memory would haunt him for the rest of his days. Meanwhile, his father probably wouldn't even lose a wink of sleep over the whole affair.

"I can't believe that I was starting to think he might not be so bad after all," he muttered into the darkness.

Before he could continue down this depressing line of thought even further, Shinji heard the heavy locks in his cell door opening. A moment later, the door to the tiny room swung inwards, and Shinji held his hands up before his face, groaning as the light hurt his eyes.

_What now?_ He wondered.

"Shinji?"

_That_ was a voice he hadn't expected to hear anytime soon. Given how heavily the former Ops Director had been drinking lately, he would've thought she'd still be sleeping it off back home, at best. Yet here she was, and she sounded perfectly lucid, too.

"Misato?" he asked.

"Yes, it's me," she replied, entering and pushing the door until it was open only a crack. The minimal amount of light that streamed inside didn't dazzle his eyes, but it was just enough for them to see each other.

She sat down next to him on the cell's sorry excuse for a cot. It was so small that they had to press up against one another to stay on the thing. The feel of Misato's hips touching his probably would've caused the pilot to blush under normal circumstances, but these weren't exactly normal circumstances. Even so, he couldn't help but enjoy her warmth; the cell was several degrees colder than anyone could call comfortable.

"Have you come to take me out of here?" he asked.

She shook her head sadly. "No. In fact, I'm not even supposed to be in here," she confessed. "The Commander left orders that you aren't allowed any visitors. I actually had to slip the guard a few thousand yen to get him to let me in." She added with a bitter laugh.

A wink and a jiggle had also been necessary to persuade the man, who was a member of Section Two. However, she didn't feel that Shinji needed to know _that_ at the moment.

"I see," was the only thing he said.

"Shinji-kun…I'm sorry," she said. "I should have been there."

He looked up, surprised. He wasn't entirely sure what to expect from Misato, though he'd have guessed it would either be sympathy or a lecture about obeying orders in a combat situation. He certainly hadn't anticipated an apology.

"It's all right," he said awkwardly, "it's not like you could have done anything."

This was apparently the wrong thing to say, because his words caused Misato to cringe. It was readily noticeable even in the dim light.

There was a long, tense pause. "How is Toji? Is he…?" Shinji couldn't quite bring himself to finish that sentence.

"He's alive," Misato said at once. "But…he lost his leg, Shinji-kun."

"Damn," the Third Child breathed. Now he had crippled two members of the Suzuhara family.

"Look, Shinji," Misato began again, "I want you to know that I'll do everything I can to make this right. If NERV tries to skip out on the medical bills for Toji or his sister, I won't let them."

"Thank you, Misato."

"Shinji-kun, c'mon, talk to me. Please," she said, just a hint of desperation creeping into her voice.

"What's there to talk about?" he asked.

"Well…what are you going to do?" she replied. "I realize that your father was an absolute ass, but they're not going to let you back into Unit One unless—"

"I'm not going to get back into EVA," Shinji interrupted her in a quiet voice.

"What?"

"I'm never going to pilot an Evangelion again," he said simply.

Misato's eyes widened. "But—"

"How am I supposed to get into the entry plug, knowing that at any second, my father can throw a switch and use my hands to attack an innocent person again?" he demanded, his voice slowly rising. "I never wanted to pilot to begin with, and it seems like all I ever do is hurt people when I do."

"Shinji, that's not true," she said sharply. "You've saved a whole lot of people by piloting."

"It doesn't feel that way," he replied petulantly. "Nobody's ever said to me 'Thank you, you saved my life.' Instead, I get got punched in the face for injuring Toji's sister, and now I've crippled him, too."

"Don't do this, Shinji," she pleaded with him. "Please. You can't run away now."

"I'm not strong like you, Misato. I can't stay here. I _can't_," he said emphatically. "I'm so tired of hurting people, and being afraid that I'm going to die, and being disappointed by my father." He added in a whisper.

There was a long pause, and Shinji was just waiting for the former Ops Director to leave his little cell. He knew that nothing she'd say could convince him to change his mind.

So he was extremely surprised when she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a tight embrace.

"Misato…?"

"I'm sorry, Shinji. I'm so sorry about what happened," she said in a watery voice. "I should have been there, not sitting at home, drunk off my ass."

"Misato, I already told, it's not—"

"I should've been there," she insisted.

Shinji didn't reply. He didn't know what to say to that, so he just sat there, allowing Misato to hold him. Much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, the warmth and touch of another person were extremely welcome after spending so long down in the cold, miserable holding cell.

"Listen, Shinji, nobody can stop you if you want to go back to your old home and leave EVA behind. God knows you don't owe NERV anything," she said. "But…I don't want you to go. I need you, Shinji."

"Huh?" He blinked, startled. Those were four words he'd never expected to hear, least of all from Misato.

"I never admitted it to you, but I didn't take you in because I felt sorry for you," she said. "I took you in because I was lonely."

Shinji was shocked by this revelation. He never would have guessed that she'd become his guardian for any reason other than pity.

"But, you have Asuka now," he pointed out. "You don't…you don't need me."

"I care about Asuka a lot, Shinji, but not the same way I care about you," she said. "It's not about just having someone—anyone—at home to welcome me back anymore. I've gotten attached to _you_, specifically. You're like my…my…" She trailed off frowning.

"Like your what?" he eventually prompted her.

She shook her head, not quite knowing how to put a label on what he was to her. She didn't regard him as her son, or as her little brother. He was more than a friend, like family but not. There didn't seem to be a word that accurately described all that.

"You're my Shinji," she answered finally, deciding that was the best way she could put it. "You're my Shinji, and I'd hate it if you left Tokyo-3 and just stopped being a part of my life. It would be like there was a hole there."

"Misato, I…" he began, then trailed off.

He had no idea what to say. Mere minutes ago, his conviction to leave NERV and Tokyo-3 had been absolute, but against all his expectations, Misato's words had definitely shaken that conviction. He had never imagined that she cared about him so much.

"I can't make this decision for you," she said, finally releasing him from her tight embrace but maintaining contact by placing her hands on his shoulders. "You have to do that. And if you still want to leave, I'll…I'll understand." Her voice hitched as she spoke that last part, though.

"Misato…" he tried again, but again found himself trailing off. He had no idea how he could express just how much learning she cared about him like that meant to him.

She didn't seem to mind; instead of trying to cajole him into saying something other than her name, she decided to do the last thing Shinji ever would have expected.

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

Despite how chaste the gesture was, fireworks seemed to go off inside his mind, and he blushed so ferociously that he was certain it was plainly visible, even in the dim light. He slowly placed a hand over where she'd kissed him. The skin there seemed to pulse pleasantly.

"M-Misato?" he stammered, having no idea what had motivated her to do that.

"It's a pretty lame payment for everything you'd done and gone through here," she said, though Shinji wasn't at all sure that he agreed with that statement, "but I wanted to do it anyway. I should tell you, too, that I'm sure there were a lot of times the Angels would've won if you hadn't fought them. I'd be dead if you hadn't been there. So you saved my life, Shinji. Thank you."

With that, she got up and left his cell. A moment later, someone closed the door behind her, and Shinji was alone in total darkness again. With a small sigh, he leaned against the wall; he had a lot to think about now.

Yet even as he tried to decide what he should do, one thing nagged at him.

Why had Misato been acting like she could have prevented the whole disaster from happening if she'd just been sober at the time?

* * *

"Give me good news, people." Tokita said as he entered the large lab where his team was working on the extraterrestrial's space ship.

It was a technique he'd used frequently at his last job to push the group of engineers and technicians who'd worked on creating the Jet Alone for Hokkaido Heavy Industries, and it had worked quite well back then. Everyone had worked hard to have something positive to tell their boss when he asked that question, and Tokita had made it a point to properly reward everyone for their efforts.

Here, it was…not quite as effective. Mostly because nobody had any good news to give him. The crew of white coats looked at him silently, awkwardly shuffling their feet.

Finally, one of the more senior scientists coughed into his fist and approached Tokita. "Here are the daily reports, Tokita-san," he said, handing over a clipboard.

"Thank you, Doctor," Tokita said, forcing himself to keep his sunny expression in place, rather than give into the grimace that wanted to form on his face. "Keep up the good work, everyone! Let's do Kiyoharu Innovations proud!"

There were a few unenthusiastic murmurs of agreement. Tokita ignored this underwhelming response and announced that he was going to his office. Once he was finally alone in the little room, he allowed himself to heave a heavy sigh, collapsing into his office chair.

_This is not going nearly as well as I'd hoped,_ he thought, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

The problem wasn't his underlings. The members of his team were all clever people, no doubt about that; they were the finest minds at Kiyoharu Innovations, bar none. Also, Tokita privately felt that he'd done a very good job of getting his staff organized so they functioned in an efficient and productive manner.

The problem wasn't the budget, either, amazingly enough. The board of directors clearly felt that they had potentially hit the mother lode, and they were making sure he had the resources necessary to mine it for the company.

No, the problem was that damn ship!

_Honestly, you'd think an interstellar, alien __**space craft**__ would have more useful technology inside it!_ He thought with a scowl as he read over the report he'd just been handed. It contained no new or encouraging information.

Of course, he hadn't expected to have a new super weapon ready so soon after the project had commenced, but the news he'd been getting had been one big disappointment after another.

The engines? Melted to slag by reentry. The computers? Shattered by the crash. The weapons? Nonexistent. Artificial gravity? If it had ever been there, his people couldn't even identify the systems that had created it. Sensors? Same fate as the engines.

With each day that passed, it was looking more and more like the space ship might be good for little other than scrap, despite its out-of-this-world origins.

His grim musing were interrupted by a knock at his office door.

"Come in," Tokita called.

Tanesada entered, smiling pleasantly as usual. "Shiro," he greeted the other man, his tone just a bit _too_ jovial, "I hope I haven't caught you at a bad time."

"Not at all, Tanesada-san," Tokita replied, forcing the smile back onto his face. "What can I do for you?"

Tanesada sat down in Tokita's guest chair and crossed his legs. He had the blackest, shiniest shoes that Tokita had ever seen. "Oh, I was just interested in knowing how things are proceeding with your little project," he said.

Tokita resisted the urge to wince. He wasn't surprised by the request, of course, but that didn't mean he had to be happy about it.

"We're finding a number of very interesting things," he said carefully. "It could potentially bring in a great deal of money for Kiyoharu Innovations."

This was true enough. The team's metallurgists had all but thrown a party once they'd started to analyze the ship's armor, and the study of the alien himself was revealing some fascinating things. The scientists had run his DNA through the company's super computer and found that his species had an extremely high rate of cellular regeneration. If they could figure out how to duplicate the trait in humans, it could revolutionize modern medicine.

However, Tanesada clearly wasn't interested in that sort of thing; he frowned at Tokita's tepid response. "Now, Shiro, you know that's not exactly what I wanted to hear."

_No, you wanted to hear that we found something you could make into a gun,_ Tokita thought.

"I hope you'll forgive me for asking, sir, but why the great rush?" he asked. "This project is very new, and we _are_ trying to figure out alien technology. All of it is _completely_ foreign to us. Surely you had to know this would take time."

"Oh, I don't expect a working prototype by next week, but I was hoping you had some good prospect on the horizon," Tanesada said. "We've discovered that we have something of a window of opportunity, you see."

Tokita frowned in confusion. "Window of opportunity?" he echoed. "I'm sorry, Tanesada-san, but I don't understand."

"The last Angel battle apparently went poorly," his boss elaborated.

"What happened?" Tokita asked, leaning forward in anticipation.

Tanesada shrugged. "NERV is being extremely secretive about it, even by their standards. The details aren't exactly public knowledge, to say the least," he said. "What we do know is that a little village near Mount Nobe—the site of the last battle—was reduced to a complete ruin, and there are rumors that NERV doesn't have Unit Three any longer."

"I see," Tokita said, surprised. He hadn't heard about any of this.

"As I said, we don't know the details, but it seems pretty clear that NERV stumbled somehow," Tanesada continued. "There are probably quite a few generals in the JSDF and JSSDF who are starting to doubt NERV again, and I want to be able to take advantage of that. In order to do that, though, I at _least_ need to be able to tell them that we're working on something promising."

"I understand, sir," Tokita said. "I'll have something for you soon."

"Good man," Tanesada said, rising from his chair. "I'll let you get back to work, Shiro. I'm sure isn't easy, fulfilling the demands we put upon you."

_You don't know the half of it, _he thought gloomily as he watched Tanesada leave his office. He didn't feel at all certain that he could keep the promise he'd just made.

Fortunately, there was _one_ bright spot, one single thing they'd salvaged from the craft that might be able to meet his new company's needs.

Tokita left his office and headed for the small lab where they were keeping the alien vessel's fuel tank. The center of the room was dominated by a structure that was composed solely out of huge, lead blocks. The scientists were clearly taking no chances with the exotic radiation the fuel was emitting.

"Dr. Maeda," he called to a scientist who was hunched over a computer nearby.

He looked up, appearing to be mildly annoyed at the interruption. However, when he spoke, it was in a pleasant enough voice. "Good day, Tokita-san," he said. "What can I do for you?"

"I need an update on your progress here," he said. "You happen to have the most interesting part of the space ship, Doctor."

Maeda smiled. "I can believe that," he said. "Anyway, to answer your question, we've determined that the radiation being emitted has some of the characteristics of alpha particles, but is most definitely _not_ composed of alpha particles. Quite fascinating really."

"I see. Have you performed your experiment with the mice, yet?" Tokita asked.

"Take a look," Maeda replied, gesturing to his computer monitor.

Tokita peered at the screen, which was currently displaying a streaming feed from a camera inside the lead fortification. It showed a cage full of little white mice, all of which looked perfectly healthy. One was running around on the little hamster wheel inside the cage.

"They seem fine," he said. "How long have they been in there?"

"Several hours," Maeda replied.

"So we can assume it's safe enough for someone to go in and take a sample of the fuel for more in depth study?" Tokita asked.

It would be an understatement to say he was eager to accelerate the research into the contents of the ship's fuel tank. Tokita might not have a clue what exactly was in there, but he did know that it would take an enormous amount of energy to propel a ship from one solar system to another. If they could figure out how to unleash the energy contained in that substance, it could very well serve as the fuel for fifty warheads, all of which would make an N2 mine look like a firecracker in comparison.

"We can assume _nothing_, Tokita-san," Maeda said sharply. "Not when it comes to alien technology, exotic radiation, and a fuel source that could've come from anywhere in the universe. No, we _must_ proceed with the utmost caution."

"Of course, Dr. Maeda, forgive my excitement," Tokita said. "I'll let you get back to work."

Maeda said goodbye, but Tokita barely noticed. He was too busy thinking of how best to force the issue.

* * *

"Insubordination, damaging NERV property, threatening violence against a superior officer. These are all serious offenses," Gendo Ikari said, his hands folded in front of his face. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Several choice responses immediately jumped into Shinji's mind. After spending several days in his holding cell, Section Two had finally come for him, clapped him in a pair of ridiculously thick handcuffs, and then marched him up to his father's office.

"Well?" Gendo demanded after the Third Child had been silent for a few seconds.

Shinji wanted to tell his father to go to hell. He wanted to ask why he had to explain _his_ offenses, when Gendo never had to justify his own sins. He wanted to yell and scream at his father for using his hands to nearly murder his best friend.

Yet he knew that nothing would come of any of it. Something he had finally realized was that his father would never give him an inch, never allow his son to see a crack in his armor. Before that first battle, the Commander had made certain to avoid giving the impression that he actually needed his son, despite how desperate the situation had been. More recently, after the last battle, his father hadn't been willing to even try and reason with him out his state of nearly hysterical fury; he had simply ordered that the pressure of the LCL in his entry plug be raised until it knocked Shinji out.

After years and years of knowing it, Shinji had finally _accepted_ it.

His father literally would not even give him the time of day.

Unfortunately, if Shinji was to get what he wanted, he had to play ball with his father.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have done that."

They were the hardest words to speak that he'd ever uttered, despite his considerable practice at apologizing. It wasn't even a lie, either; Shinji was, in retrospect, horrified at what he'd almost done. He knew he could've murdered countless innocents if he'd managed to destroy half of NERV headquarters, as he'd threatened to do.

Yet apologizing for his fury that day was something he still hated to do. It made it seem like his father had nothing to be sorry for.

"That's all you have to say?" Gendo asked, looking almost bored.

Shinji almost told the Commander to go to hell right then; he had to clamp his mouth shut to keep the words from escaping.

"I thought my best friend was dead," he said, once he'd cooled enough to trust himself to speak. "I lost control of myself. It won't happen again."

Gendo regarded him silently for several seconds. In the dim light of the office, the lenses in his glasses were transparent enough that Shinji could see his eyes. They looked as warm and caring as the average glacier.

"Under ordinary circumstances, an adult soldier who did the things you did would receive a court martial, and then probably spend many years in prison," the Commander said coldly. "However, these are not ordinary circumstances. NERV cannot afford to lose EVA Unit One at this time, simply because its pilot displays conduct unbecoming. You will not receive your salary from NERV for the next three months. Now, you are free to go. Someone will remove the shackles."

Shinji blinked. "That's it?" he asked.

"Yes, but if you ever disobey like that again, the consequences will be _far_ more severe," Gendo vowed.

The Third Child swallowed. Something in the _way_ his father had said that made him feel quite certain that the punishment for a second such offense would easily fit into the "cruel and unusual" category. In fact, it might _redefine_ the term.

Shinji thought he noticed his father's eyes change from dark brown to yellow for a moment, but he chalked it up to a trick of the light and the man's colored lenses, just as he had last time.

"Unit One or no, NERV cannot afford to utilize a pilot who displays a _pattern_ of insubordination and direct rebellion," Gendo continued. "Keep that in mind."

"Yes, sir," Shinji said in a quiet voice.

He turned and headed for the door of the office, barely able to believe how lightly he'd gotten off. The loss of three month's salary meant nothing to him; most of his pay went to a trust fund he didn't really expect to ever collect on, anyway.

_I guess what Asuka's always said about EVA pilots being indispensable is actually true,_ he thought.

"Pilot Ikari," the Commander spoke just before he made it to the door.

"What is it?" Shinji asked, turning.

"I did not expect that you'd be able to admit your wrongdoing, or that you'd wish to stay where you are," Gendo said in an even tone. "You surprised me."

That was a compliment, Shinji supposed, and hearing it made him want to sprint back across the room and punch the Commander in the nose.

"I don't want your praise," he said instead, and left the office.

There was a small reception area outside his father's lair, and there Shinji found a Section Two man waiting to remove his shackles. The member of NERV's secret police force did this without a word, and the Third Child was perfectly happy not to have a conversation with the man. Once freed, he stepped outside into the hallway.

And found himself face to face with Misato.

He was surprised to find her waiting for him, but not nearly as much as he would've been if not for their talk down in his holding cell.

"So?" she asked softly.

He managed a weak smile. "I've been docked three months' pay for what I did."

She laughed, a relieved, giddy sounding thing, and then hugged him with all her strength, crushing him against her.

Of course, unlike when she had embraced him in his holding cell, they were standing. Since there was still a considerable height difference between the two of them, the result was that Shinji suddenly found his face completely smothered by Misato's always impressive feminine attributes.

"Misato!" he exclaimed, attempting to push away from her.

Or at least, he tried to shout her name. The noise he actually produced was a lot more like "Mmph!"

However, she must've gotten the message anyway, because she released him before he suffocated, throwing an arm over his shoulder. "Come on, Shinji, let's go home."

"Right," he agreed eagerly. After spending so much time down in the dungeon, the idea of home was especially appealing.

They made their way out of the base without incident, and Misato drove them back to the apartment building, maintaining a constant level of comfortable small talk the whole time.

Shinji was grateful for that; he didn't really want to talk about his recent experiences with anyone, not even her. Maybe that would change in time, but for right then, all he wanted to do was go home and pretend for a while that everything was normal.

"Asuka is spending some time with Hikari tonight, so we've got the place to ourselves," Misato said as she unlocked the door to the apartment.

Shinji just nodded, silently bracing himself for the sight of the place. He shuddered to think of the state it was in after he'd been gone for so long.

"Well, welcome home, again," Misato said as she opened the door.

Shinji blinked as he looked inside. It wasn't exactly what he'd call _clean_—he could see that the floor needed a vacuum, there were dirty dishes in the sink, and the place could use some general tidying up—but it wasn't the disaster area he'd feared it would be.

"Well, I guess I better get started on dinner," Shinji said, noting the time as he entered the apartment.

"You don't have to cook, Shinji," Misato said. "We can order out."

"No, I'd prefer to, actually," he insisted. "After what I've been eating the past couple of days, I really want something homemade."

Misato shrugged. "If that's what you want, Shinji. I certainly won't complain; I've gotten spoiled to your cooking."

With a small smile, he went over to the fridge and opened it, fervently hoping that there were enough ingredients in the apartment for him to make a respectable dinner.

Shinji was shocked at what he saw inside the fridge.

Or, more accurately, he was shocked at what he _didn't_ see inside the fridge.

"What happened to all the beer?" he blurted out, turning to give Misato a shocked look.

"Oh, that. I poured it all down the drain," Misato said, as though there wasn't anything remotely remarkable about this. "I decided I didn't ever want to be too drunk to do anything ever again."

Shinji gaped at her, stunned. He almost asked her just what had brought this unbelievable development about, but he stopped himself at the last moment. Something about the expression on her face told him that she wanted to talk about that about as much as he wanted to discuss the last battle.

Which was to say, not at all.

"So…is ramen good?" he asked instead.

"Ramen would be great," Misato replied enthusiastically.

Nodding, Shinji got to work preparing a meal for the two of them, trying to get lost in the welcome task. However, one question just wouldn't stop nagging at him.

_Why is Misato acting so much like she's responsible for what happened?_

* * *

The next day found NERV restored to something that resembled normalcy. Dr. Akagi called in all the pilots for a synch test, at least, and so far as the Children were concerned, there was nothing more mundane than one of those.

However, despite how routine everything might have seemed on the surface, Misato knew that things were still far from normal.

_Everybody's treating Shinji like he's some sort of pariah,_ she thought as she headed toward a bank of vending machines.

She guessed it shouldn't have come as a huge surprise; it was only natural that most of the staff be spooked by Shinji after he'd gone berserk and threatened to destroy headquarters. However, even Asuka didn't quite know how to act around him anymore; though Misato knew that the redhead would never admit it, Asuka had been awkward and uncertain around Shinji since his return to the apartment the previous day.

_Really, the only people in NERV who have been treating him normally are me and Rei,_ Misato thought as she inserted a few coins into one of the machines, getting it to spit out a can of coffee. _And Rei is…Rei._

She would definitely have to see about doing something nice for him, she decided. After all, it was obvious that he had chosen to remain in the city purely because of her.

It was a thought that made her feel warm inside when she contemplated it, but it also made her feel guilty about every bit of crap that was being thrown in Shinji's direction. She hadn't truly been cognizant of it while she'd been pleading with him to stay, but it occurred to her that she was now at least partially responsible for everything Shinji had to endure in Tokyo-3.

"So I guess I'll have to help him through everything as best as I can," she said to herself, before cracking her can open and taking a sip.

She hoped that "as best as she could" would be a lot better than it had been before, now that she'd stopped drinking.

For that matter, she also hoped that she wouldn't fall off the wagon. Misato had utterly no desire to start drinking again, but she wasn't sure how she'd feel in a month.

She shook her head, trying to clear it of all the grim thoughts. She should get back to the test plug control room. Even though the synch tests were run entirely by Technical Division One, who needed no assistance from her, she felt it was her duty to be there.

_After all, if we're going to bore the pilots stiff with these stupid tests, it's the least I can do to be bored with them,_ she thought, taking another long drink.

She almost choked when the base's alarms all abruptly went off, filling the entire NERV pyramid with the shrieking of klaxons. Misato quickly threw her can away, and after glancing around to make sure she wasn't in plain view of any nearby security cameras, she held her right hand up close to her face.

"Ring," she said quietly, "what's happening? Is an Angel approaching?"

_"Affirmative,"_ it answered, just loudly enough for her to hear it.

Misato knew she should've been dismayed to hear that; Unit Zero was nowhere near being battle ready again after the damage it had taken while fighting the Thirteenth Angel, and NERV still didn't know if the recent, traumatic experiences the pilots had endured had affected their ability to sync with their Evangelions. Of course, it also meant that her charges would be going into combat once again.

Yet despite all this, a rather feral smile made its way onto her face. After what the last Angel had done, it was time for _payback._

* * *

"All personnel, go to first stage alert," Makoto ordered. "Prepare for surface to air interception!"

"Target status?" Fuyutski demanded.

"It's broken through our perimeter!" Aoba reported. "The Komagatake Defense line has been shattered!"

Outside, the bulky form of the Fourteenth Angel floated slowly into view. The instant it was in range of the city's intercept system, every available artillery battery opened up, unleashing trillions of yen worth of ballistics at the hostile.

It was all for naught. The Angel shrugged off all the state-of-the-art missiles and shells as though they were no more than mere gnats. Then its eyes in its skull like face flashed, and suddenly a cross shaped explosion erupted in Tokyo-3.

"The first eighteen layers of armor have been breached!" Makoto reported. "Unbelievable! Eighteen layers in one shot!"

"Well, that's not good," Kaji commented as he strode into the command center.

"You're late," Ritsuko snapped at him.

"Even the Operations Director has to go to use the restroom every now and then," he replied. "This Angel caught me with my pants down."

The scientist rolled her eyes, unable to believe anyone could be making jokes at a time like this.

"If the Angel keeps up this pace, it'll breach the Geofront in under two minutes," Makoto warned.

"Status of the EVA's?" Kaji asked, finally getting serious.

"Units One and Two are currently battle ready," Aoba answered. "However, Unit Zero is still missing its left arm."

"Where are the pilots?" Kaji asked.

"We got lucky with them having a synch test. They're getting into their entry plugs now. We should be reach to launch the Evangelions in 90 seconds," Aoba reported.

"So, a thirty second window," Kaji said. "Not enough. Deploy the Units One and Two inside the Geofront. We'll fight this Angel there. Somebody get some weapons out there for them. It looks like they're going to need all the heavy artillery they can get." He added grimly.

"On it," Maya said.

"Launching Units One and Two now." Aoba added.

Inside the cages, the electromagnetic lifts activated, propelling the pair of Evangelions upward. This time, though, they didn't go as far as they normally did, emerging inside the massive cave of the Geofront rather than on the surface of the city. Moments later, another lift brought up a cache of weapons that the NERV support staff had frantically thrown together. The pilots chose their weapons, preparing themselves for the attack of what looked like the strongest Angel yet. Now all they had to do was wait.

Or at least, so it seemed.

"Uh, sir," Aoba spoke up, "we're picking up something else in the city."

"Not something else, some_one_ else," Makoto corrected him, changing the image on one of the command center's smaller screens with a few keystrokes. "It's the Green Lantern."

"Does she think she can take the Angel on all by herself?" Ritsuko wondered aloud.

Both the jade heroine and the Angel could be seen on the main monitor now, and the superwomen looked like little more than a pinprick of green light. She was a tiny and insignificant firefly trying to take on a rampaging elephant.

"Damn it," Kaji hissed. "Prepare to redeploy the Evangelions to the surface!"

"Belay that," Gendo ordered, and all eyes in the command center went to him. He leaned his face on his folded hands. "Let's see how she does, first."

The new Operations Director turned to the Commander, ready to protest that Green Lantern alone clearly had no chance against the obviously massive power of this Angel. One look at the man stopped him, though; one look was all he needed to realize that Ikari had the same expectation.

With a scowl, he turned back to look at the main monitor.

* * *

The Angel was enormous. It was intensely aggressive. It had come from seemingly nowhere. It ignored every single shell and missile that the city had to throw at it. It had, in fact, devastated most of Tokyo-3's major defensive batteries and turrets with only a few energy blasts, and it had seemed to do this as an _afterthought_.

Yet the Green Lantern of Sector 2814 did not need to overcome her fears in order to face this colossal beast, and for one very simple reason.

Green Lantern was _not afraid_.

"Ring, power check," she ordered.

_"Power levels 99.4 percent,_" it answered.

"That should just about do it," she decided.

Taking a deep breath, Green Lantern channeled more of her willpower into the ring than she ever had before. None of her old hatred of the Angels went into the band of green metal, much as she might have liked to funnel all her old animosity and lust for revenge into it. She had already learned that it didn't work that way.

Instead, she poured her determination to protect the Children and keep them alive into her power ring. She poured her vow to never drink again into it. She poured her desire to make the rest of Shinji's time in city as tolerable as possible into it. She poured her will to be as good as the people who depended on her needed her to be into it.

In response, the most powerful construct she had generated yet burst forth, starting around her body but very quickly growing until it was hundreds of time larger than she was. It took on a roughly humanoid shape, but it was almost immediately clear that the thing she was making _wasn't_ a human. It was lankier than any real human and had a nigh demonic looking head with a single, great horn.

Soon, the construct was complete.

Evangelion Unit One's emerald twin had taken to the field of battle.

The Fourteenth Angel, which had been completely ignoring her up until that point, ceased in its efforts to penetrate the Geofront and turned its bony face in her direction, apparently looking at her.

"That's right, big boy," Green Lantern said softly. The jade warrior was sitting in a green reproduction of the real Evangelion pilots' entry plugs. A luminescent plug suit covered her Corps uniform, and she even wore glowing A10 connector clips in her dark hair. "Come get some."

The Angel obliged her; its eyes flared with an unholy light, and a cross-shaped blast of energy soon streaked through the air toward Unit One's doppelganger, leaving the smell of burnt ozone in its wake.

Green Lantern was ready for the attack; the faux Evangelion rolled to the right, tearing up the street and anything else unlucky enough to be crushed by the maneuver just as surely as a real EVA would have. Then, before the Angel could regroup, it got back to its feet and charged at the Angel, a forest green progressive knife materializing in its right hand.

"Too slow!" Green Lantern shouted.

The Angel's AT field flared to life just before the green EVA could touch the beast; its progressive knife construct halted mere meters away from the Angel's eye socket, stopped by the barrier of orange light. Green Lantern grit her teeth, and the Unit One duplicate applied every bit of strength it could to the task of piercing the shield.

Then the Angel began to expand the field. Several "layers" of hexagonal barriers became clearly visible, and they became more and more spread out as the beast countered Green Lantern's assault. The emerald Unit One found itself being propelled through the air on the furthest one out. Momentum kept it pressed against the wall of shimmering light, but once the barrier stopped moving outwards, inertia would keep carrying the ring construct along.

"Oh, no, I am _not_ going to be stopped by some damn light show!" Green Lantern yelled, focusing her mind once more.

The progressive knife melted away and was replaced by a construct of an Evangelion-scale power ring. As the jade Unit One pressed it against the surface of the Angel's AT field, Green Lantern clenched her jaw.

A beam of jade light as thick as a tree trunk exploded forth, shattering the first layer of the Angel's AT field like it was no more resilient than glass. Then it crashed through the next layer, and the next, the brute force of the attack breaching the nearly indestructible barriers with seeming ease.

At least, they did at first. Every layer of the AT field proved more resilient than the last, withstanding the brunt of the assault for just a bit longer than its predecessor had. At first, it was barely noticeable, but by the time the beam reached the second to last layer, it was taking several seconds to break through.

Yet break through it did. The beam of emerald light finally crashed into the last layer of the Angel's AT field, the unstoppable force meeting its immovable object.

It was a truly awesome sight. The luminous duplicate Unit One hovering in the air above Tokyo-3, its light leaving the city awash in otherworldly emerald glow. A column of pulsing green light streamed forth from the ring on its finger, while the Angel stood near the ground as the attack washed over it like an unending tide.

"Come on! Come _on!_" Green Lantern ground out through gritted teeth, beads of sweat running down her brow. She knew she couldn't keep up the mental effort necessary to sustain the attack for much longer.

The final layer of the Angel's AT field abruptly shattered, and the beam struck the beast with the force of skyscraper-sized battering ram. Yet amazingly, the Angel was not killed by the attack.

Indeed, the Angel wasn't even _knocked down_ by the attack. It staggered backwards, and for a second, it looked like it might fall, but then it managed to right itself. Smoke was rising from a gaping wound in its body, beneath its face but above its core, yet the Angel of Might didn't even appear to notice.

Green Lantern was undeterred by its resilience. The Unit One duplicate crashed to the ground at last, its feet leaving deep craters in one of the major streets of Tokyo-3.

"Let's try that again without the AT field, shall we?" the jade superwoman snarled, throwing her massive ring construct into a sprint.

In response, the Angel unfurled the stubby appendages at its sides, and they became long, thin arms. Green Lantern barely had time to wonder what they might be for before the Angel used them to lash out at her. Its arms streaked toward the faux Unit One's shoulders with blazing speed, apparently intending to sever both of its arms clean off.

It might well have worked, too, if Green Lantern hadn't preempted it. The instant before its attack could connect, the emerald Unit One's arms simply winked out of existence. The Angel's papery appendages hit nothing but empty air.

Coming within a few paces of the Angel, the Evangelion duplicate leapt into the air, and its arms sprang back into existence as abruptly as they had vanished.

"_Take this!"_ Green Lantern shouted, bringing her faux Evangelion's fist down in the Angel's face.

This time it _did_ fall, landing flat on its back with enough force to set off tremors all throughout the city. In Tokyo-3's numerous shelters, everyone shuddered and clutched more tightly onto their loved one as the lights flickered and the floor shook.

Yet the Angel _still_ lived.

Therefore, Green Lantern did not relent. An Evangelion-scale mini-gun materialized in her construct's hands. The weapon was so massive that it could have easily given the standard pallet rifles feelings of inadequacy.

"How do you like my little friend here?" she demanded of the Angel. "I call her _Olga!_"

Not waiting for a response, the green Unit One depressed the trigger, and the cylinders of its weapon began to spin. Bullets made from jade light erupted from the multiple barrels, colliding with the Angel's skull-like at point blank range.

Even the Angel of Might couldn't withstand such an assault. Chunks of its ossified face were blown away by the luminous slugs smashing into at such an obscenely high speed, and after a few moments, the plate of bone was entirely gone, exposing a patch of pink flesh beneath.

The mini-gun vanished from the faux Unit One's grip. For this, Green Lantern preferred a _hands on_ approach.

"_Rauugh!_" she screamed wordlessly, bringing her Evangelion construct's fist down on that exposed patch of flesh. It sank into the soft tissue all the way to the wrist.

The Angel somehow managed to let out a high pitched shriek of rage and agony, despite not having anything that even resembled a mouth any longer. It writhed wildly, trying to free itself, but Green Lantern would have none of it. She held it down with her faux Evangelion's free hand, while raining a series of devastating blows onto its weak spot.

"No more death! No more pain!" she shouted. "Your kind will never hurt anyone ever again! Not while I have anything to say about it!"

The Angel had nothing to say to this, which was good, because Green Lantern wasn't in the mood to hear it. However, at that very moment, Evangelion Units One and Two emerged at the surface of the city, NERV having finally decided to redeploy them. The test type Evangelion hesitated, its pilot uncertain about what to do.

The pilot of Unit Two, on the other hand, had no such problems.

"All right, Greenie, we'll take it from here!" Asuka announced over her EVA's external speakers. "Get lost! Go stop somebody from jaywalking or something!"

To say that Green Lantern ignored the Second Child wouldn't have been completely accurate, largely because the emerald superwoman was so absorbed in her current task—attempting to beat the Fourteenth Angel to death—that she completely failed to notice the presence of the real Evangelions.

"Hey! Did you hear me?" Asuka demanded, pointing her rifle at Unit One's emerald double threateningly. "I told you to clear out!"

Green Lantern still didn't realize Units One and Two were even there, but the question of whether or not Asuka would have actually fired on her that day was one that would never be answered.

The faux Evangelion delivered one more mighty blow to the Angel's face, and the street beneath it could finally take no more of the impacts. It collapsed, and both the Angel and Unit One's twin went tumbling down into the Geofront.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," Asuka grumbled as she watched the two combatants fall into the very area she and Shinji had so recently scrambled to depart.

The Fourteenth Angel and the Unit One duplicate crashed to the floor of the Geofront, reducing a small forest worth of trees to so much pulp beneath them and creating a very substantial crater.

Dazed by the fall, Green Lantern allowed her construct to waver. The edges blurred like those in a photograph taken by a camera that was out of focus. She looked around, trying to get her bearings.

Unfortunately, that brief moment was all the Angel needed. It lashed out with one of its thin arms, the end of it striking the faux Unit One's chin from below with a devastating uppercut that sent even the giant ring construct reeling. It other arm quickly wrapped itself around the green Unit One's waist, easily lifting the thing into the air. Before Green Lantern could respond, its free arm began to rain blows down on her, seemingly striking from all angles. Under the brunt of such an all out assault, it was all the jade heroine could do to maintain the integrity of her construct.

Then, a truly horrifying thing happened. The Fourteenth Angel somehow managed to grow a new face, much as the Third Angel had done before it. The eyes lit up, and all Green Lantern could do was brace herself for the pain.

Which never came.

"This is my fight, damn it, and _I won't let you take it away from me!_"

Instead, the size 200 foot of EVA Unit Two crashed into the Angel, sending it sprawling and causing it to release Green Lantern's construct. Even though she was still seeing stars, it only took the jade heroine a moment to realize that Asuka had decided to ditch her power cable and jump down through the hole in the Geofront roof, rather than take the time to ride the EVA lift down again.

A small smile appeared on Green Lantern's face. _Whatever else you say about Asuka, you have to admit that the girl __**knows**__ how to make an entrance!_

Of course, the Second Child wasn't done yet. Unit Two's left shoulder pylon opened, revealing the progressive knife hidden there, and the crimson titan quickly grabbed hold of the weapon. The blade came to life with a deadly hum, and Asuka wasted no time in using it.

"_Die!_" She roared at the Angel, thrusting the blade directly at its core.

Armor snapped shut like an eyelid over the ruby sphere, but it was either weak against piercing weapons, or the damage it had already taken had left the Fourteenth Angel too winded to truly defend itself. The knife easily penetrated both armor and core, sinking in right up to the hilt. Intense white light began to stream out of the wound, and the Angel roared in pain.

Yet just as Green Lantern thought that the Angel of Might was finally done for, she saw it readying itself for one final attack. The eyes in its skull-like face lit up ominously, and they were pointed directly at Unit Two.

There was no time to warn the Second Child to back off, even if the redhead had been willing to risk losing the kill. There was only one way she could make sure that another one of her charges wasn't hurt by an Angel.

Unit One's luminous twin pressed its hands over the Angel's eye sockets the instant before it fired its energy attack.

The results were incredible, to say the least. Green Lantern's construct of EVA Unit One seemed to explode from the _inside_ with bright white light, and the emerald superwoman screamed as her whole world became blinding light and pain. An instant later, she was vaguely aware that she was hurtling through the air, but she didn't have the faintest idea which direction she was actually going in.

The Angel, however, managed to fare even worse. Not enough of the energy was able to escape, and it had nowhere to go but backwards. The entire upper half of its torso-like body simply _exploded_, showering the inside of the Geofront with pieces of its flesh. One particularly large chunk made it all the way to the NERV pyramid and crashed straight through the thick concrete of the outer wall, missing a low ranking technician who just happened to be passing through the hall by mere centimeters.

Several seconds later, Green Lantern finally hit the ground, bouncing across the grassy field of the Geofront like a rock skipping across the surface of a lake. Eventually coming to a stop, she allowed herself to simply lie prone for a long moment. The grass beneath her was rough, and the ground it grew from was as hard as iron, but she didn't care. At the moment, it was surprisingly comfortable.

_Don't you __**dare**__ go to sleep!_ A voice inside her mind hollered, and she reluctantly opened her eyes. _If you pass out here, the Commander will send Section Two out to grab you!_

The thought was enough to get her moving, albeit reluctantly, and she sat up, still blinking spots out of her eyes. It was a wonder she wasn't blind, she decided.

Then she heard Asuka laughing triumphantly and turned to look at Unit Two, standing over the ruin of the Fourteenth Angel's body. The Second Child did not appear to be very concerned about the emerald superwoman and was clearly enjoying her moment.

"Congratulations, you got one," Green Lantern grumbled sarcastically as she forced herself to her feet.

Now that the immediate danger had passed, the jade warrior had time to be annoyed with Asuka for forcing her to perform such an insane stunt.

"I'll definitely have to have a talk with her about that later," Green Lantern muttered.

Still, she mused, the Angel was dead, none of the pilots were hurt, and while she was probably going to be sore _everywhere_ come morning, she wasn't injured.

"Guess I can put today into the win column," she decided as she took to air.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** All right, we're back. And so is Misato, by the looks of it. The ring construct of an Eva is something I'd planned to do almost from the beginning, but I needed to wait until the proper moment to have Misato do it. The Fourteenth Angel seemed about right.

And just what is Tokia planning? Looks like you'll have to wait until next chapter to find out.

As always, thanks a lot to all of my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.

Now for some fun!

* * *

Omakes

I'm Sorry, I Couldn't _Not_ Do This One…

Instead, she poured her determination to protect the Children and keep them alive into her power ring. She poured her vow to never drink again into it. She poured her desire to make the rest of Shinji's time in city as tolerable as possible into it. She poured her will to be as good as the people who depended on her needed her to be into it.

In response, the most powerful construct she had generated yet burst forth, starting around her body but very quickly growing until it was hundreds of time larger than she was. It took on the shape of a bipedal being, but it was almost immediately clear that the thing she was making _wasn't_ a human. It was bulkier than any human and had a nigh demonic looking visage

Soon, the construct was complete.

* * *

On the command center, everyone gasped as Green Lantern's latest creation took shook.

"Oh my," Maya breathed.

"It is _Godzilla!_" Makoto exclaimed.

* * *

Official Request

"There, it's done," Mike said, looking frazzled. "Your glorious 'rise above your personal demons' chapter is finally written."

The young writer was currently sitting at his desk. Both he and it were currently trapped inside a large cage made of emerald green light. Next to him sat the remains of his ultimately useless bunker.

"Well, it took you long enough," Green Lantern said, apparently channeling her inner Asuka.

The author just sighed wearily. "You know, it would've gone like this even if you hadn't locked me in here," he commented. "By the way, can I get out now?"

"Not just yet, Mister," Green Lantern said.

"What?" the writer asked, taken aback. "But I did what you wanted. What more could you possibly want out of this chapter?"

"Oh, the chapter's great," Green Lantern said. "But there's a little side project I want you to work on."

She handed him a piece of paper through the bars, and the writer took it with some trepidation. His eyes widened incredulously at what he saw. " 'Magical Girl Misato Totally Saves the Day from the Evil Dark Angels'? You can't be serious!"

"Get writing, Bucko," Green Lantern ordered smugly.

The writer sighed and turned back to his computer. "This is _not_ going to end well."


	12. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it, and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Eleven:** Introspection

It was a perfectly ordinary morning in the life of Vice Commander Fuyutski.

He had gotten up at the heinously early hour that his duties at NERV required, as usual. He had eaten a quick, cold breakfast, and then gotten himself showered and dressed, also as per usual. Twenty minutes later, he'd boarded a train to the Geofront—empty but for himself at that ungodly hour—and had settled down to read his morning paper.

_Hmm, looks like the city council's getting ornery again,_ he thought as he skimmed through the local news section. _I bet Ikari will be sending me down there to talk to them. Again._

He let out a weary sigh at the thought of having to meet with that group of pompous politicians once more. Ikari always stuck him with the worst jobs.

A moment later, the train entered a tunnel, and Fuyutski folded up his paper and put it on his lap, waiting for the moment when he would emerge inside the Geofront.

Most people, though initially awestruck by the underground colony that GEHIHN had created, quickly came to view the sight as mundane.

Not Kozo Fuyutski. Perhaps it was only because he was privy to all the ugliness that SEELE and NERV had spawned, but he never got tired of looking at one of the few beautiful things they had wrought.

Unfortunately for him, the train suddenly jerked to a halt. Fuyutski felt a twinge of unease as he steadied himself from the unexpected jolt. A moment later, the lights went out in the cabin, and that twinge grew into a sinking feeling.

_Uh-oh,_ he thought.

That sinking feeling changed into one of resignation when he heard the door to the train being forcefully pried open. A moment later, several beams of white light shot through the darkness. The Vice Commander winced against the glare, but he was still able to see the men holding the high-powered lights.

_Oh, really, now that's just overkill,_ he thought, taking in the sight of half a dozen men in full commando gear, each armed with a wicked looking rifle.

"So, I suppose that Keel decided to do something, then?" Fuyutski said, trying to sound sardonic rather than afraid.

He supposed it was only to be expected. Gendo could only keep secrets from Keel for so long before SEELE did something in retaliation.

Unfortunately, they apparently still viewed abducting Gendo as going too far. So, once _again,_ he was finding himself stuck with the stink job.

The lead commando ignored his question entirely. "Kozo Fuyutski, you will come with us," he ordered in no uncertain terms.

"Very well," he said.

There was no need for him to get shot, after all.

_And who knows, maybe I might even get out of this at some point,_ he thought hopefully. _Hell, maybe I'll even get out __**alive.**_

One of the soldiers grabbed him by the arm and none-too-gently pulled him to his feet. A moment later, he was being marched out of the train car.

_Of course, I'm not sure just __**who**__ would come to save me…_

* * *

"Oh man," Misato grumbled.

This was a situation she had found herself in often enough the last couple of years: standing before her bedroom mirror while clad in nothing but her undergarments and scrutinizing her reflection with a worried eye.

Of course, there was one very significant difference between now and the previous times she'd done this. In the past, she'd found herself picking out every little line and wrinkle that had appeared on her face, every unwelcome sag and jiggle that had somehow developed on her body.

She told herself that every new and unpleasant discovery had been no big deal, completely insignificant, but Misato knew she was watching her youth starting to ebb away. Though she was still very early in the process, it was hard to deny that she was starting to get old.

Now…now she was stressed out because she looked so _young_.

_God, I guess some women really __**are**__ impossible_ _to satisfy!_ She thought and almost laughed.

It was true though, she mused. Her ring had kept making her younger while she'd been on her extended bender, and with her too intoxicated to tell it to stop, it…hadn't.

_Geeze_, _I'm as toned, tight, trim, slim, pert, and perky as I've ever been,_ she thought with one part pleasure and two parts anxiety.

Actually, she decided, she was probably in slightly _better_ shape than she had ever been. She wasn't exactly sure how this could be—her lifestyle of late hadn't been particularly healthy, to put it mildly—but she felt sure that her muscle tone had never been quite this good before, though she was still nowhere near what she looked like while being the Green Lantern.

"It's a miracle that nobody's figured out something's weird with me yet," she muttered. "Ring, physically, how young am I now?"

_"Nineteen Earth years old,"_ it answered immediately.

She winced. Nineteen. The absolute _farthest_ back she had ever planned on going was twenty-one.

_"Do you want this ring to cease making you younger?"_ It asked.

"Yes," she answered at once.

If she got much younger, she'd start getting shorter, too, and then people would _really_ start taking notice of the changes.

_Hell, I should tell this damn thing to start making me older now,_ she thought.

It would certainly cut down the risk of anyone suspecting that something extraordinary had happened to her. It would be the logical, sensible thing to do.

_And yet,_ she thought, _and yet…_

She liked being young again, in her prime again. Honestly, being a superhero had been a _lot_ harder when she'd been in a body that was almost 30. Not only that, but she felt like she had a younger mentality now, too, with a certain impetuousness returned to her. Taking on (and saving) the world suddenly seemed like a much less impossible proposition than it once had.

It also didn't hurt that she wasn't feeling like a dirty old woman every time she raised Shinji's blood pressure with her teasing.

"Ring," she said, making a decision, "hold me at this age until I tell you otherwise."

_"Acknowledged._"

Misato smiled at her reflection, then went to start dressing, a spring in her step.

* * *

"Working late, Tokita-san? It's almost seven o'clock already."

The man in charge of researching the extraterrestrial space ship looked up from his paperwork and offered his subordinate a small, rueful smile.

"I'm afraid I don't have much choice in the matter, Doctor," he replied. "Tanesada-san has really been breathing down my neck lately. I need to make sure everything's in order."

Dr. Maeda gave him a skeptical look. The scientist knew very well that, while orderly records were always nice, what Tanesada wanted was _results_. Having every "i" dotted and every "t" crossed would curry little favor with the boss without them.

However, he decided not to point that out, silently concluding that their slow progress so far was making Tokita desperate.

"Well, don't work too hard," Maeda chided the younger man instead. "I can't imagine your wife appreciates you practically living at the office like this."

"Oh, the wife's not a problem, since I don't have one of those," Tokita replied.

"All the more reason to get out then!" Maeda chortled. "You're not going to meet your future mate cooped up in here. Office romances never work out, you know."

"I'll…think about that, Doctor," Tokita said, his impatience with the conversation clearly showing through his polite facade.

"Hmm, well, good night, then," Maeda said. "See you tomorrow morning."

"Good night," Tokita replied.

Maeda silently punched out using a fingerprint scanner near the door, then departed.

"_Finally_," Tokita grumbled softly the moment the man was gone.

He hadn't had a bit of work to do for over an hour. He'd just been going through the motions while he waited for all the members of his team to depart for the night.

It had almost seemed like Maeda had realized that and had deliberately stayed late just to be a pain. That was becoming a habit of his, or so it seemed to Tokita.

Yet now he was alone at last. Tokita got up from his desk, his knees popping in protest at the sudden movement after having been left idle for so long. He ignored it and headed to the room where they were keeping the fuel tank from the alien ship.

They had moved it from its lead castle to a larger room, one that was easier to get into but had significantly less radiation shielding. That transfer had been the one concession that he had managed to get Maeda to make.

_Honestly, the man's being utterly paranoid when it comes to that thing,_ Tokita mused with a scowl. _Everything we've exposed to the radiation that tank's been leaking hasn't been affected in the slightest. But if you left it up to him, we'd all be old and gray before we got around to opening it._

Considering that Tanesada truly _was_ breathing down his neck, Tokita couldn't afford to wait remotely that long. After all, if he lost this job, there was a very good chance that he wouldn't be able to find another. Additionally, he loathed the idea of NERV beating him _again_. He hated that almost as much as he hated the thought of being perpetually unemployed. Unfortunately, he had no authority to override Maeda, not on a safety issue where radiation was concerned.

Which was why he was going to open it and take a sample now, without the good doctor's blessing.

"Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission," he mused aloud, arriving at the lab that bordered the chamber where they were currently keeping the fuel tank.

Tokita quickly suited up in one of the bulky yellow radiation suits (no need to be _completely_ reckless, after all), then armed himself with a lead-lined specimen jar.

_All I need is a single gram of what's inside that tank, and I can get this project moving again,_ he mused as he swiped a card through a reader, gaining access to the room that held his prize.

Carefully setting his specimen jar on the floor, he went over to the tank. For an alien artifact, the thing was almost disappointingly mundane. Indeed, it looked like it could've easily been made by humans.

Which worked quite well for him, actually. That made it easy for him to figure out how to open. Tokita pulled on a lever, and there was a hydraulic hiss of pressure being released. He grabbed a handle on the hatch and pulled…

_**BOOM!**_

Tokita screamed as a wave of light, heat, and energy erupted from the fuel tank, slamming directly into him. He was knocked onto his back, landing hard on the floor. Klaxons started shrieking seconds later. Radiation alarms, he realized, too dazed to become frightened about that just yet.

"Uhhh…" he groaned, woozily trying to take stock of himself.

He realized that the front of his radiation suit, along with his shirt, was completely gone from the chest up.

Well, not _gone_, to be precise. Shredded, partially burnt pieces of it were scattered all over the room.

An explosion that powerful should have left him with serious burns, he belatedly realized, if not have killed him outright. However, his skin appeared to be completely unscathed by the blast.

His head, on the other hand, was _pounding_.

"God," he grumbled, reaching up to rub his forehead.

He stopped the moment his fingers actually made contact, immediately feeling something that should _not_ be there.

His first thought was that several worms were sitting on his forehead. Space worms, perhaps, from inside the fuel tank.

Then he felt further and realized the truth, much as he didn't want to. It wasn't worms he was feeling, it was veins. His own veins, which had bulged out unnaturally.

"Tokita-san!"

Dr. Maeda burst into the room along with a trio of the building's security guards, all clad in radiation suits.

"God, he's been exposed," Maeda said, kneeling down next to Tokita to examine him. "Somebody call an ambulance!"

_"Damn corporate toady. I was afraid that he'd try something like this. Idiot should have listened to me."_

"What did you say, Doctor?" Tokita hissed. Or tried to hiss, anyway. It came out as more of a croak.

"I said that you need medical attention!" Maeda snapped. "Somebody call the hospital!" he reiterated to the security guards, and one finally left to do it.

_"Almost wish he had died."_ From one of the guards this time. _"Guy's such a phony and a complete jackass, too. Everybody would be better off without him."_

"Shut up," Tokita growled softly, wincing.

But they didn't shut up. Indeed, they only seemed to get louder.

_"God, why would the nimrod do this? He could've gotten himself killed."_ The other guard now. _"Then again, I guess it's probably pretty easy to do something suicidal when you have no life."_

"Shut up!" Tokita snapped.

"We're not saying anything!" Maeda exclaimed, as though he thought the other man was an idiot. A deaf idiot. "Now sit still, I need to check your pulse…"

_"Great, now Tokita's going insane, too. What next? Will he—?"_

"SHUT UP!"

A wave of concussive force burst forth, as though generated by Tokita's bellow. Maeda and the remaining two guards were sent flying, crashing into the walls with an extreme amount of force. Tokita could easily hear bones breaking.

A moment later, Maeda and the security guards crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

Tokita knew he had hurt him. He knew he should feel bad about that, but he didn't.

For the moment, he was just glad that he'd managed to shut them up. Tokita lay back onto the floor and passed out.

* * *

"Now, mind you, Green Lantern's holographic EVA was pretty cool looking and all—though if it had been up to me, I'd have created a replica of Unit Two, of course—but it was obvious that she was just out of her league, dealing with that Angel."

"Yes, Asuka," Shinji agreed absently as the pair of Evangelion pilots walked to school together. "Of course."

"She got off a couple of good shots at the start, I'll give her that," the redhead continued. "Probably surprised the hell out of the Angel when she created that fake EVA out of thin air and all, but it wasn't long before it had her on the ropes…"

Shinji largely tuned Asuka out, only listening closely enough so he could nod and voice agreement at the appropriate points. The Second Child was pleased with her victory over the Fourteenth Angel, to put it mildly, and Misato's lecture about recklessness had done seemingly nothing to dampen that pleasure. She had even taken to regaling him with her (rather slanted) version of the story, despite the fact that he'd been there and seen it all himself.

He could've contested a few of the details, but frankly, he didn't want the trouble that would come from that.

_At least she's acting normal around me again,_ he mused.

Asuka had been behaving rather…skittish around him ever since the debacle with the Thirteenth Angel. Of course, whenever he'd made the mistake of telling her that there was no need to be afraid of him, she had angrily denied that she was acting any differently than normal.

So he considered this quite an improvement, really.

"Green Lantern was in a huge amount of trouble until I decided that it was time for drastic action," Asuka went on. "So I…hey, are you listening?"

"Yes, yes, I'm listening," he quickly reassured her.

Her eyes narrowed, but she eventually went on with her story again. "So I decided to leap down into the hole they'd made in the Geofront roof…"

Yes, Shinji mused, truly Asuka's behavior had been the very picture of normalcy ever since they'd fought the Fourteenth Angel.

Misato's behavior, on the other hand, had been anything but normal.

_She goes straight from a marathon bender to swearing off alcohol completely, all because of some disaster she wasn't responsible for?_ He thought skeptically.

He'd made a few careful inquiries about it to her, and she'd told him that she never wanted to be incapacitated in a time of crisis like that again, even though it was unlikely that her presence in the command center at the time would've changed anything.

Shinji supposed that could be true, but still…he didn't quite buy it.

He didn't know much about alcoholism, and he didn't claim to; his uncle was a lot of things, but a drunk was mercifully _not_ one of them.

Yet he _did_ know a little. He remembered how, before he'd been summoned to Tokyo-3 by his father (in what Shinji thought of as his "other life"), it had been a well known fact around the school that one of his classmate's father had a drinking problem. Despite Shinji's status as something of a social outcast, the resulting gossip had reached even his ears.

It hadn't been pretty. According to what Shinji had heard, the man's life had simply gone from bad to worse. He'd wrecked the small business he'd owned, eventually having to declare bankruptcy. He'd lost the house his family lived in. His wife had left him, and, for the final tragedy, he'd run over his own daughter with his car, killing her. He'd been heading over to his wife's new apartment to plead with her to take him back, and he'd been extremely drunk.

The cause of all these disasters had seemed moronically simple to Shinji, but the worse the man's life became, the _more_ he drank.

Hearing the whole sad tale play out over the course of nearly two years had instilled in Shinji a real sense of just how _powerful_ a thing addiction could be.

Yet Misato, who had once started and ended each day with beer, kicked the habit because she felt bad about something she wasn't even responsible for? It was a little hard to swallow.

_But why did she do it, then, if not because of that?_ Shinji wondered.

Rather reluctantly, his mind returned to the possibility that Misato was the Green Lantern.

The Third Child wanted to reject the idea out of hand, but when he really stopped to think about it, he had to admit that it seemed surprisingly plausible. After all, Misato's guilt over the way the battle against the Thirteenth Angel had unfolded made a lot more sense if she actually _could_ have changed its outcome, had she been sober at the time.

_And she left the Operations Director job around the time Green Lantern showed up,_ he mused.

Green Lantern had also appeared at the golf course he and Misato had visited, just moments after Misato herself had disappeared…

_Still doesn't explain why Green Lantern looks so much more muscular than Misato, though, or how Misato was in Matsushiro after the Tenth Angel while Green Lantern was still in outer space,_ he thought.

Not long ago, he would've considered all that ample proof that Misato _wasn't_ Green Lantern, but with evidence for the opposite conclusion piling up, he was truly starting to wonder.

"But how do I find out?" he muttered.

"How do you find out what?" Asuka asked crossly, frowning disapprovingly at him.

"Nothing," Shinji said at once. "So, you were saying?"

"Right, so I stabbed the Angel right in the core…"

* * *

The first thing Fuyutski became aware of as he started to come around was the throbbing pain in his head. He didn't think he'd been bashed on the skull, though. More likely they'd used some powerful drugs or chemicals to knock him out.

_Chloroform, maybe,_ he mused absently.

Eventually, he dared to open his eyes, and found himself sitting in the middle of a room that was so pitch dark he couldn't see the walls. A light fixture directly above him bathed the Vice Commander in a small island of illumination. He was firmly bound to the chair he found himself in.

"Cliché," he commented with a small, grim chuckle.

Instantly, as though triggered by the sound of his voice, 12 holographic monoliths appeared around him.

"Well, well, well," he said, turning his neck to observe as many of them as possible, "not the Human Instrumentality Committee, but the entire SEELE council. Not what I was expecting."

"We thought it was time to drop some of the pretenses," SEELE 01 said. "Though not all of them, obviously."

"Oh, obviously," Fuyutski agreed.

"I would not be so cheeky if I were in your position," SEELE 06 warned him, the acid in his tone clear despite the voice distortion all the members of the cabal were using. "You are completely at our mercy. No one is coming to rescue you."

"No, I suppose not," the old professor agreed with a weary sigh.

"Of course, your stay here need not be a long one," SEELE 03 added in a far more cordial tone. "If you cooperate, we can have you back in Tokyo-3 by this evening."

"And what is it that you want from me?" Fuyutski asked.

He already had a pretty good idea what they wanted, of course, but he figured it couldn't hurt to make them spell it out for him. The nature of their questions might give something away.

"Don't be coy," SEELE 02 warned him. "We know that Ikari is keeping secrets from us."

"It would be rather impossible for us not to know," SEELE 05 chimed in, his tone dark.

"Indeed," SEELE 02 agreed. "He hasn't hidden his scheming half as well as he believes. Tampering with the MAGI computers' data recorders, the incident with Legion…frankly, he doesn't seem to _care_ what we think anymore, so long as he can keep us largely in the dark."

"We cannot tolerate such a state of affairs, which is why you are here," SEELE 01 added. "We want you to shed some light on this situation."

_Very vague,_ Fuyutski noted. _Are they being careful, or do they not know enough to ask more specific questions?_

"Well?" SEELE 02 demanded after he'd been silent for a few seconds.

It was time to see how long he could stall before they started to get angry.

"Could I have a glass of water?" he asked as innocently as he could.

* * *

When Tokita woke up, he found that he was no longer inside the room with the alien fuel tank. Instead he was…

_Where is this?_ He wondered, realizing that he didn't recognize his surroundings as he looked around.

At first glance, the place resembled a hospital room; he was in a medical bed, hooked up to an EKG monitor. However, he didn't know of any normal hospital where there were security cameras hanging from the corner of the room. The place also looked _too_ sterile and utilitarian, even for a hospital room; there were no windows, no decorations, and, aside from his bed, not a single stick of furniture.

The heavily armored and doubtlessly locked door was another clue that something was amiss.

"What happened?" he muttered to himself, his voice coming out as a croak. Tokita tried to get up and discovered that he could barely move. His body seemed to weigh a ton. "Ugh, why am I so weak?"

There was no button to call a nurse on his bed, so it appeared that he just had to content himself to wait. Fortunately, someone must've been watching the feed from the security camera and discovered that he was awake, because it wasn't long before he heard the heavy lock in the door being opened.

It was Maeda who walked inside. "H-Hello, Tokita-san," the scientist said, his voice faint and his face pale. A white bandage was wrapped around his head, and Tokita wondered if he'd done that.

"Maeda," Tokita said softly. His voice seemed to be as weak as the rest of him.

_"God, he looks even worse than before."_

Tokita's eyes widened a bit at that, and he was about to demand to know what the hell the man meant. However, one very important detail stilled his tongue.

He'd been looking at Maeda, and Tokita had clearly seen that the scientist's lips hadn't moved. He'd heard the words, he knew he had, but Maeda hadn't spoken.

_Good Lord, did I just hear his thoughts?_ Tokita wondered.

The idea seemed preposterous, but Tokita knew what he'd seen and heard. And come to think of it, Maeda and the security guards _had_ seemed far too candid when they'd first found him…

Or he could simply be going insane. That also seemed very possible.

_"Great, now he's staring off into space. If that radiation affected his mind half as much as it affected his body…"_

"What did the radiation do to my body?" Tokita asked.

Maeda visibly started at the abrupt question.

_Score another point for the mind-reading hypothesis,_ Tokita thought, feeling strangely numb. The situation was so surreal and bizarre that he wasn't even sure what emotions he should be experiencing.

"The alien radiation appears to be causing you to…mutate," Maeda spoke, regaining his composure. "I wish I didn't have to show you this, but…I'll go get a mirror…"

The man disappeared from the room for a minute, but Tokita didn't just lie there and passively wait for him to come back. Instead, his closed his eyes, imaging himself reaching out to Maeda with ghostly hands…reaching out and touching the other man's thoughts.

He inhaled sharply, finding the feedback far more intense than he'd expected. It was like he'd just pulled back the curtain on Maeda's mind; the man's memories were an open book to him, and images from the scientist's past began to flash wildly past his eyes.

_No, I don't want this,_ Tokita thought, pushing aside Maeda's memories of his first kiss. He began to search through the man's mind for what he sought, being careful to use a feather-light touch, lest Maeda realize something was amiss.

It didn't take Tokita long to procure an image of what he himself looked like now, as seen through the other man's eyes. He winced, fervently hoping that he really _was_ just going crazy and that he couldn't really read minds at all.

He didn't want to be insane, of course, but it would be better than…that.

Maeda returned a moment later with hand mirror. The man hesitated for a moment, struggling for words, but he found none that could soften the blow he was about deliver.

"Here," he said lamely, then held up the mirror.

Tokita saw himself, and his eyes slid shut in quiet despair. His suspicions about his mind reading capabilities, and his worst fears about what had become of him, were both confirmed.

"I'm sorry," Maeda said.

_"Of course, you did bring it on yourself,"_ the scientist added silently, unaware that Tokita could hear his thoughts.

"We're going to be keeping you here at headquarters for a while," Maeda continued. "There's not much a hospital can do for you, after all. We'll study the alien radiation, and hopefully we'll discover a way to reverse your mutation."

Tokita didn't need to read the other man's mind to know how slim he thought the odds of _that_ happening were.

"…is there anything I can do for you?" Maeda asked after a few moments of silence.

"Leave," Tokita rasped. "I want to be alone."

"Of course," Maeda departed, closing the door after himself.

A moment later, Tokita heard the heavy lock engaging.

He didn't care. He was a monster, a grotesque little troll. The alien radiation that had given him extraordinary mental powers had also crippled his body, leaving him barely capable of moving.

_And it's all NERV's fault,_ he thought, feeling rage spike through him.

If they hadn't sabotaged the Jet Alone, he'd still be at his old job, and he'd never even have heard of the crashed alien ship. If they hadn't squeezed everyone else out of the business of fighting the Angels, Tanesada wouldn't have been so zealous about the prospect of getting their company back into the game. He never would've been pressured to do something as risky as opening an alien vessel's fuel tank otherwise.

"They ruined my life," he whispered, balling his hands into fists.

The monitoring devices around him began to shake, as though in a very mild earthquake. However, the ground beneath Tokita's bed was perfectly still. Surprise replaced rage, and the medical equipment immediately ceased trembling.

_Of course,_ he thought, abruptly recalling how Maeda and the two security guards had been sent flying. _I did that._

It seemed that, in addition to his newfound telepathy, he had telekinesis, too. That opened up some interesting possibilities.

A smile formed on his deformed face. If he could master his new abilities, NERV would _pay_.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I'm aware that this is a very slow chapter, but it was necessary to set up for the next battle. The bits with Tokia were especially essential. I'm sure any GL fans reading this can identify which villain he's turning into.

Anyway, as always, thanks to my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.


	13. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Twelve: **Mind Over Matter

Shinji Ikari was not a typical teenage boy.

Even if one were to ignore the truly glaring differences between Shinji and most of his peers—being the pilots of an Evangelion and the emotional issues he had, for starters—there were still some significant examples to be found.

Unlike most teenage boys (and teenagers in general), Shinji was a morning person.

This had begun when he was with his previous guardian. The man didn't like to cook, and so had insisted Shinji learn as soon as the boy was old enough to safely operate a stove. Once Shinji had become competent at the culinary arts, he'd found himself with the job of preparing all the food, which had meant getting up early to make breakfast.

Though he'd initially felt rather put out at being saddled with this extra job, Shinji had eventually discovered that he enjoyed the early hours when most others weren't up yet.

That sentiment had only grown stronger when he'd found himself in the dangerous and sometimes chaotic life of an Evangelion pilot. Shinji felt he needed the morning hours, which were always quiet, tranquil, peaceful…

_"Urp!"_

A ringing belch suddenly sounded inside the kitchen, bringing the Third Child's train of thought to a halt.

_Well, I guess they're __**almost**__ always peaceful,_ he amended, glancing over at Misato, who was seated at the kitchen table, holding a large, steaming mug. _Why the heck does coffee cause her to burp like that?_

With a mental shrug, Shinji returned to the task of making breakfast, soon setting down a trio of plates at the table.

"You gonna wake Asuka up?" Misato asked, looking just a tad bit more awake after a few mouthfuls of food.

Shinji glanced at the clock. "There's still some time," he said. "Might as well let her sleep in a few more minutes."

"Might help her disposition a bit," Misato replied with a small smirk.

"I'm surprised you're awake," Shinji remarked. "You don't have to go to the base early today, do you?"

"Hmm? Oh, no, but my work schedule's been so crazy lately that it's been messing with my sleep schedule. I woke up early this morning and just couldn't get back to sleep," she complained.

"Ouch," Shinji said sympathetically.

They lapsed into silence after that, both of them eating at a sedate pace. Between bites, Shinji stole glances at Misato, again wondering if his often slovenly guardian could really be the Green Lantern.

He started to mentally compare the two again, struggling remember every little detail he'd taken in when the emerald superwoman had thwarted the robbery of the mini-golf course. _They're about the same height, and they __**definitely**__ have the same body type,_ he noted appreciatively. _But their eyes…_

Shinji gazed at Misato's half-lidded eyes. They were a warm brown, completely unlike the luminous superwoman's almost unnaturally vivid green ones.

_Though I guess that out of all the reasons Misato probably __**isn't**__ the Green Lantern, that's the weakest,_ he mused. _After all, colored contacts could do that._

Unfortunately, caught up in his thoughts, Shinji had forgotten to steal glances at Misato and had instead started outright staring at her. She noticed.

"See something you like, Shinji-kun?" Misato asked with a smirk.

"Huh?" he asked, surprised at getting caught looking at her.

The purple-haired woman's grin widened. "Wow, I must _really_ still have it if a young man like you can't resist taking an eyeful when I look like this!" she said, running a hand through her wild, just-woke-up hairdo and then gesturing to her rumpled (and skimpy) sleep clothes.

"Yeah," Shinji said softly, then blushed when he realized that he'd spoken aloud.

No one should look as good when completely disheveled as Misato did, he decided. No one.

The Ops Director beamed. "And what was it about me that most caught your roving eye, Shinji-kun?" she asked in a breathy voice that sent pleasant shivers down his spine.

"Um…" Shinji stammered, suddenly finding it very difficult to think straight. He couldn't very well tell her that he'd been trying to figure out if she was Green Lantern or not, but he wasn't quite sure what he _could_ tell her.

"Come, you can tell me, Shinji-kun," Misato cooed. "What part of me were you looking at?"

He was unpleasantly reminded on the time Toji and Kensuke had caught him looking at Rei and had started demanding to know which part of her anatomy he most preferred.

"Shinji-kun?"

"Your eyes," he finally blurted out.

Misato blinked, so surprised by his answer that she completely dropped her smoky tone of voice. "You were looking at my eyes?"

He nodded, relieved that he'd given an answer that wasn't terrible.

"Why?" Misato asked, bemused.

He shrugged, not entirely understanding the question. "Why not?"

She snickered. "Shinji, my eyes are probably the most plain thing about me," she informed him. "They're brown. There are millions and millions of people in Japan with brown eyes. I wish I had nice blue ones like yours." She added, smiling fondly at him.

"But I think your eyes are really pretty," he protested.

Then he felt like slapping himself. The filter between his brain and his mouth seemed to be _completely_ absent that morning.

Misato, however, didn't notice Shinji cringing at his own words. Her warm brown eyes were suddenly looking decidedly liquid thanks to the Third Child's clumsy but very sincere compliment.

The silence between them soon started to stretch out. Shinji coughed nervously. Clearly, one of them had to say _something_ soon, but Misato wasn't stepping up to the plate, and he had _no idea_ what to say.

The moment was saved by the arrival of Asuka, who had emerged from her bedroom mere moments before. "Why didn't you wake me if you had breakfast ready?" she demanded of Shinji without preamble.

"Oh, uh, I wanted to let you sleep in a little," Shinji said.

Asuka, always a ray of sunshine in the morning, glared at him for a moment and then sat down at her place. "At least it's still hot," she grumbled after sampling a bite.

Shinji just tried not to look as grateful and relieved as he felt.

* * *

"You realize, of course, that our patience is starting to grow thin. You know this can't continue this forever, Professor Fuyutski."

The captive Vice Commander of NERV didn't try to hide his exasperation with this whole process. He'd spent most of the last few days in a tiny, windowless cell. Every day at some point (he had no means of determining when, exactly), a pair of men who would've fit in perfectly in Section Two would arrive and drag him off to a holographic meeting chamber. The monoliths representing the members of the SEELE council would appear to interrogate him, and when they got nothing, they would have him sent back to his cell.

It was all very tiresome.

"My patience is growing thin, too," he told the council. "So why don't we just end this whole spectacle already?"

SEELE 03 chuckled darkly, the voice alteration adding an extra eerie quality to the sound. "Tell me, Professor, do you believe in Hell?" he asked.

"Yes," Fuyutski answered without hesitation.

"Then perhaps you shouldn't be so eager to bring this experience to an end," SEELE 03 said. "At least, not an end where you deny us the information we seek. After all, you're no saint, Fuyutski. As the second in command of NERV, you've had to do things that most would consider evil."

"I said I believe that Hell exists," Fuyutski said. "I didn't say I was afraid of it. I've seen and lived through Hell. I can do it again. I deserve as much."

"So eager to die? And for Ikari, of all people?" SEELE 03 sneered. "I wouldn't be, if I were you."

"Enough," SEELE 01 spoke up, his voice authoritative. "Professor, we have been tolerant of your stalling and postponement thus far, but time is _not_ on our side. If you do not divulge the things Ikari has kept hidden from us, we will be forced to use more…_persuasive_ measures to loosen your tongue."

"Restoring to threats of torture?" Fuyutski asked, trying to hide how fearful he suddenly was. Unlike death, that was a prospect he truly did dread. "I thought you were more sophisticated than that."

"It is not a threat, it is a promise," SEELE 01 growled, just as a pair of men appeared in the doorway to the room. "You will be taken back to your cell now. Weigh your options carefully before facing us again."

Fuyutski said nothing as he was led away. His situation, which had previously just been a nuisance, had suddenly become genuinely frightening, and he found himself wishing that someone would come to get him out of it.

He could only think of one person who would be able to pull off a rescue and would be crazy enough to act directly against SEELE in such a manner. Unfortunately, Gendo had very effectively leashed Kaji when he'd forced the man into the Operations Director job.

* * *

Ryoji Kaji was not having a very good week. In fact, if he was being honest with himself, Kaji would admit that so far he was having a very bad _year_.

Something was happening. He _knew_ something was happening. His superiors (one set of them anyway) had ordered him to try to investigate and take any appropriate actions.

But that was utterly impossible to do while he was stuck in Misato's old office, filling out paperwork, with that jackass Chiron or someone else from Section Two coming to check on him every few minutes!

_This sucks,_ he thought as he scrawled his signature onto yet another form, wondering how Misato had managed to stay sane in this job.

"Well, you look happy," a familiar voice said from the doorway, startling him out of his stupor.

He looked up, surprised to see Misato standing there. "Speak of the devil," he grumbled.

"Eh?"

"I was just thinking about you," he answered. "Wondering how you put up with all of this."

"Alcohol," Misato answered. "Now that I'm not the Operations Director anymore, I've gotten rid of all my beer."

"Mm, yes, Shinji mentioned that to me," Kaji said.

The spy turned Ops Director hadn't quite figured out how Misato's abrupt 180 on that had come about. Shinji had told him what details he could, but it was clear that the Third Child didn't understand it himself. He would've liked to investigate the minor mystery, but between his new position and trying to figure out how to get away from Section Two for a few hours, he simply didn't have the time.

"You've been having conversations about me?" Misato asked, her eyebrows going up.

"Shinji was worried about you, Katsuragi. So was I, for that matter," he said, neglecting to mention that they'd been planning an intervention. No need to bring that up now.

"Oh," Misato replied.

"Touched by our concern?" he asked.

"Touched by Shinji's concern," she corrected.

Kaji sighed, finding himself sadly unsurprised. "You wound me," he said. "Look, whatever the reason, I'm glad you stopped drinking so much, Katsuragi. It wasn't good for you."

"Thanks," Misato said, looking grudgingly grateful.

Kaji smiled. "And I have to say, looking at you now, you should have stopped a long time ago," he said. "I swear, you look ten years younger!"

Rather than blush or snap at him to stop hitting on her, Misato chuckled nervously. "Thanks, I guess."

Kaji arched an eyebrow. She seemed to be hiding something, but for the life of him, he couldn't even guess at what it might be.

"So, what brings you here?" he asked. "Don't tell me you actually came to help me with all this crap?" he gestured to the enormous amount of paperwork.

"I could take a couple of stacks back to my office if you'd like," she said.

"Oh, boy, now I _know_ you want something," he said. "So, what are you after? Out with it."

"Well, I was wondering if you knew what happened to the Vice Commander," she said. "Seems like he's been gone for a while now, and nobody ever said where he went off to."

Kaji was not particularly surprised by this question. "Oh, him?" he asked, absently grabbing a pen and paper. "He's on vacation."

"A vacation," Misato echoed skeptically.

The long-haired man nodded while positioning himself so that the hidden camera he knew was in the office couldn't see his pad. "Yes, I know, it seems odd to leave in the middle of a war," he said. "But the Commander's not planning on going anywhere for a while, so Fuyutski isn't really needed."

He quickly scribbled down the words "Talk to me later if you want the real answers. Away from HQ" onto the pad as he spoke.

"Oh," Misato said, catching onto what he was doing. "I see. Well, I guess the man deserves some time off."

"That's what I thought," Kaji agreed, tearing off the top sheet from his pad and quickly stuffing it into one of the stacks of paperwork on his desk. "This one's yours." He told Misato, picking up the stack and handing it to her.

"I'll get to it right away," she promised, accepting the papers.

"Thank you," Kaji said. "Oh, and Katsuragi, one more thing."

"Yes?"

"Look," he began, taking a deep breath. Suddenly he felt a good deal less suave than usual. "It's pretty obvious that you don't want much to do with me this time around."

"'Obvious' is understating it," Misato chimed in with a small smirk, though her tone was not unkind.

"But I was just wondering, if I had chased after you, when you left me, do you think I could've changed your mind?" he asked.

Misato hesitated for a moment before answering. "Yeah," she said. "I think there would've been a good chance."

"Ah," he said. "Well, thanks for satisfying my curiosity, Katsuragi."

"No problem," she answered, then left his office.

With a sigh, he sat back down in his uncomfortable office chair. "You're an idiot, Kaji," he told himself.

* * *

"And you say he's been doing this ever since he woke up?" asked Haru Tanesada, Vice President and all around big shot at Kiyoharu Innovations.

Looking at the live feed from the camera in Shiro Tokita's room, Dr. Maeda tried not to grimace at the note of interest in his boss's voice.

Tokita's mutations had only grown more severe as time had passed, making him look even a bit more freakish and troll-like than he had before. He had lost virtually all ability to move his body, confining him completely to a wheelchair. To make matters even worse, the chair had needed a specialized, padded clamp to hold his oversized cranium in place; like an infant, Tokita was no longer capable of holding up his own head. His voice had also grown weaker and softer. It was just a matter of time before he was no longer capable of speech, and Maeda had no idea how he'd communicate when that happened. Eye blinks might be all that was left to him by that point.

Yet even as his body grew ever more twisted and deformed, Tokita had developed a new skill: telekinesis. The man had spent many of his waking hours practicing his new power, going from unsteadily levitating some of the medical equipment in his room for a few seconds to making it all dance through the air at once. If he realized he was being watched, he didn't seem to care.

"He's been doing it almost constantly," Maeda answered his boss. "Of course, he doesn't have much else _to_ do."

"Fascinating," Tanesada said.

"Sir?" Maeda said. He couldn't see anything fascinating when he looked at the grotesque parody of a human being that his former supervisor had become.

"Well, just think of the possibilities, if the telekinetic powers could be separated from the mutation," Tanesada mused, an avaricious light appearing in his eyes. "Do you suppose it's possible to do that?"

It took quite a lot of effort on Maeda's part to conceal his disgust. Tokita had been driven to recklessly open the alien fuel tank largely by the pressure Tanesada had put on him to produce results. Yet rather than show a single shred of regret, the man was trying to wring a profit from the tragedy.

"I…I couldn't say, Tanesada-san," Maeda somehow managed to be polite. Despite his attitudes toward the man's behavior, he still very much wanted to keep his job. "It would take extensive research to even ascertain whether it's possible, let alone how to actually do it. I'm not sure Tokita-san will consent to it."

"Hmph, I don't see what choice he has in the matter," Tanesada remarked. "The company isn't obligated to continue paying for his treatments, or to continue seeking a way to reverse the mutation. After all, he broke numerous protocols in opening the fuel tank."

"Sir, if that's the way you feel, then you'd better speak with Tokita-san about all this while he's still able to give verbal consent," Maeda said, firmly implying that he wouldn't be the one doing it.

He may not have ever liked Tokita, but he wasn't about to add insult to injury by telling the man that he had to be Kiyoharu Innovation's newest guinea pig.

"Yes, perhaps I'd better," Tanesada agreed. "Make sure you get his agreement on tape. I don't want Tokita claiming we did anything without his consent later."

He left the room, and Maeda dutifully turned on the audio feed, then hit the record button. "This is not going to end well," he said, shaking his head.

* * *

If he'd still been capable of it, Tokita would have smiled as he made the medical equipment and his minimal furniture (besides his bed) fly around the room. How difficult it had been before, compared to how effortless it was now!

He wished he could go further with practicing the use of his new powers, but that would make his current keepers fear him. They'd try to figure out some way to blunt his mental powers, and he would have to rebel.

It wasn't time for that yet. He couldn't break free until the proper moment to attack NERV came at last, and that would be when _it_ started to move.

Tokita didn't know exactly when _it_ would begin moving, but he knew it would be soon, oh so soon. Any day now probably.

Why, he almost felt like an eager father-to-be, waiting for the day when his very pregnant wife finally went into labor.

As Tokita was pondering all this, the door to his little room opened, and Tanesada walked inside, looking as cheerful and amicable as ever, even in the face of his badly mutated employee.

Tokita reached out and carefully probed the other man's mind, using a feather-light touch that got him surface thoughts only. He saw an image of yen notes without number dancing through Tanesada's head.

"Good day, Tokita-san," he said. "Ah, would you mind very much stopping that?" he gestured to the objects swirling around the room.

Tokita lowered everything gently back to the floor.

"Much better," Tanesada said with a smile. "Now, I do believe it's time that we discussed your arrangement."

"Arrangement?" Tokita rasped softly.

Tanesada nodded. "Oh, yes," he said. "You see, caring for someone with your unique condition, well, it's quite a drain on the company's funds…"

The man talked for several minutes, refusing to directly state what he was after for the longest time, yet Tokita would've been able to figure it out even if he wasn't telepathic. He resisted the urge to sigh at thought of being more of a lab rat than he already was. The scientists would no doubt want blood samples, tissue samples, and to put him through any number of tests.

It would be very unpleasant and boring.

"So, what do you say, Tokita?" Tanesada finally got around to asking straight out.

The mutated man was about to give a reluctant agreement when he sensed _it_ with his new telepathic powers. The immensely powerful and utterly alien consciousness that he'd sensed some time ago finally woke, stirring as it threw off its slumber.

There was no doubt in Tokita's mind that it would move to attack Tokyo-3 soon. Though he couldn't comprehend most of its thoughts, its single-minded determination to get at…something in the city was undeniable.

"Tokita-san?" Tanesada spoke when the other man didn't answer. "Do you agree to my terms?"

It was time to make his move at last.

_**"No."**_ Tokita responded telepathically, no longer having to bother with the strain of verbal communication.

Before Tanesada could even fully register the fact that he'd heard his employee's voice inside his head, he felt himself being lifted up off the floor by an invisible hand. His eyes widened as he looked down at Tokita in horror. The man's deformed face was slack and utterly devoid of expression, a thin stream of drool running down from his lower lip and onto his chin, but there was no doubt that Tokita was behind this.

"W-Wait, please, don't hurt me! I—"

_**"Your mind is boring. All you ever think about is money."**_

With that, Tokita tossed Tanesada into the wall with such force that the executive crashed straight through it. The low groan the man emitted afterwards was the only sign that he'd even survived the experience.

The mutated man then focused his mind, and his wheelchair slowly lifted off the floor and began to head toward the door, which he easily tore open with a wave of telekinetic power.

Alarms started to blare just as he made it out into the hall, but Tokita ignored them. Minutes later, a small squad of the building's security force confronted him. Tokita didn't ignore them.

"Halt!" the leader of group shouted, an audible quaver in his voice. "Y-You must go back to your room. If you don't cooperate, we'll have no choice but to use force."

Tokita chuckled. These men were used to escorting newly terminated employees off the premises. They were totally out of their league with someone like him.

_**"Get out of my way."**_ He ordered them. _**"I need to go take my revenge on NERV now."**_

Even though they were clearly terrified, the group of men stood their ground.

_**"I said MOVE!"**_ Tokita roared.

A ripple of telekinetic power tore through the hallway, sending the group of men sprawling. After that display, even the ones capable of getting up didn't.

_**"Better."**_ He said and continued his trek out of the building.

* * *

Misato really hated paperwork.

Since having stepped down from the Operations Director position, she had partially forgotten just how _much_ she hated paperwork. However, working on the stack she'd taken from Kaji was doing quite a good job of refreshing her memory.

_And all I got for it was a lousy note promising answers later,_ she thought. _This better not be a ploy on his part to go out on a date with me. If it is…_

The image of Kaji being hit with a giant green boxing glove suddenly appeared in her mind, and Misato couldn't help but smirk. She wouldn't do that, of course, but it was fun to think about.

Part of her wondered why she was even bothering with the mystery of Fuyutski's absence. The rest of her, though, knew she was doing it because something smelled seriously rotten about the situation. She didn't like the presence of secret issues festering at NERV; in her experience, the kinds of problems that the brass tried to hide all too often had a way of eventually afflicting the rank-and-file soldiers. Which in this case meant the Evangelion pilots.

In the past, there would've been little she could've done about it, but she had a power ring and a secret identity now.

Unfortunately, that meant putting up with Kaji a bit. And some of her former paperwork, too.

With a sigh, she turned back to the report she was supposed to be reading. Just as she was starting to really concentrate on the thing, her phone let out a loud beep as the intercom when off.

"Yes?" Misato asked, perhaps a little too eagerly, as she picked up the receiver.

"Major, this is Makoto," the tech's voice replied. "We're receiving an official communiqué from the JSSDF, and I thought you should be made aware of it."

Misato frowned. The JSSDF usually avoided talking to NERV except when the Angels were involved. "What's it say?" she asked.

"Uh, apparently an individual named Shiro Tokita is currently headed toward Tokyo-3, and he's intent on taking vengeance against NERV," Makoto said. "They said they'd handle it, but they just wanted to make us aware of the situation."

He sounded confused, and understandably so, in Misato's opinion. It took her a moment to remember who Tokita was, and once she did, she only became more bewildered by the JSSDF's courtesy call.

"And why are they calling to warn us about a corporate spokesperson gone on a rampage?" she asked.

"According to them, he gained some unusual abilities through—and I'm quoting them here—an 'unfortunate accident' a few weeks ago," Makoto said. "Seems like they're actually having trouble stopping him."

"You're kidding," she said, incredulous.

"Nope," Makoto said. "The guy's made it close enough to the city that we can see him with our surveillance network. Want me to send the feed to your computer?"

"Would you?" Misato asked him, her tone _just_ coy enough to ensure that he double-timed it.

A second later, a streaming video of the incident in question appeared on her monitor. Misato quickly thanked the tech, then hung up her phone, turning her full attention to the screen.

_God, what happened to him?_ She wondered, horrified at Tokita's deformed appearance. She hadn't liked the man when they'd met, but she wouldn't have wished such a transformation upon anyone.

Once she got over her surprise and horror at seeing what the man had become, she quickly took in several details about the scene on her monitor. Tokita was in a wheelchair that was hovering above the ground somehow, headed down what appeared to be a major roadway. However, Misato didn't see any cars, leading her to believe that the JSSDF had evacuated and closed the highway that linked Tokyo-2 and Tokyo-3, which was one of the busiest expressways in all of Japan.

If _that_ wasn't enough to show that the military was truly serious about the threat the horribly mutated man presented, the squad of soldiers armed with fully automatic machine guns certainly did.

_They're not even gonna give him a warning, are they?_ She thought, wondering just why they considered the shrunken businessman such a threat.

Sure enough, the soldiers didn't hesitate to point their weapons at Tokita and open fire. However, just before they could pull the triggers, their guns all jerked upwards abruptly, sending the bullets spaying harmlessly into the air. From the looks on their faces, it was clear that they hadn't done that.

A second later, the soldiers were sent flying by an invisible force. The men must have careened at least fifteen meters through the air before they finally landed on the highway.

The camera then panned out, showing an attack helicopter as it drew within striking distance of Tokita, its guns gleaming in the midday sunshine. Normally, sending one of those things against a single individual would have been complete overkill.

Normally.

Just before it could get close enough to open fire, it abruptly went off course, as though a god had reached out and flicked the thing with his thumb and forefinger. Damaged somehow, the chopper started to spin wildly as it rapidly lost altitude. The men inside bailed out, clearly having no hope of averting a crash.

Then the image on Misato's screen changed into static as the helicopter landed on the camera that had been taking the video feed.

"Whoa," she said.

It actually seemed like the JSSDF might not be able to stop Tokita, which would be bad, considering that he was heading straight for NERV.

Misato toyed with the currently invisible ring on her finger, then turned her head to look at the large stack of paperwork she'd taken from Kaji.

Easy choice.

Getting up, she decided it was time for her to take an early lunch.

* * *

"And the military is genuinely worried about this Tokita person?" Kaji asked skeptically, pacing around the middle tier of the command center.

"Sure as hell seems like it," Aoba said with a shrug. "I don't get it, either, but they haven't been able to stop this guy yet, even though they keep insisting that they'll be able to before he gets here. What should we do, sir?"

Kaji sighed. "Give base security a heads up about the situation," he said. "It's about all we _can_ do, short of deploying the Evangelions."

"On it, sir," Aoba replied. "Do you want—?"

The rest of the long-haired man's question was drowned out by the sudden eruption of the alarm klaxons as red warning messages began to flash over every screen.

"What's going on?" Kaji barked. "Report!"

"The MAGI have picked up a blue pattern in low Earth orbit," Maya reported. "Fifteenth Angel confirmed!"

"Spy satellites are moving into position now," Aoba added. "We should have a visual in under two minutes."

"Get the pilots here, now," Kaji ordered. "Ready the Evangelions for launch, and someone call Katsuragi to the bridge."

"Yes, sir," Maya said.

"On it, boss," Aoba said.

"Uh…" Makoto stammered.

Kaji's eyes narrowed. "What is it?" he demanded.

"Major Katsuragi clocked out just before the alarm went off," the bespectacled tech said.

"What? Why?" Kaji asked.

"The reason she entered in was 'Urgent Personal Business', sir," Makoto reported. "We don't know where she is at this time."

"Problem, Mr. Kaji?"

The new Ops Director started slightly at the sound of the Commander's voice from above him. He hadn't heard Ikari arrive on the command center.

_Oh, no, no problem at all, sir,_ he thought sarcastically. _Except I don't know how to do the damn job you saddled me with, and the woman who does is missing!_

Fortunately, Aoba saved him from having to answer. "Spy satellites are in position," he reported. "Putting the Angel up on the main monitor now."

The image on the command center's largest screen immediately shifted, displaying a creature that appeared to be made entirely out of luminous pink crystal. It was shaped very much like the wings of a bird.

"It's beautiful," Maya breathed.

Kaji silently agreed. Unfortunately, it was undoubtedly still deadly, despite how pretty it was. "Have the MAGI been able to glean any useful information yet?" he asked.

"No, sir," Maya said. "All scans are coming up inconclusive."

"Big surprise," Kaji grumbled. "What's it doing so far?"

"It's just holding position," Aoba reported. "It's in geosynchronous orbit directly above us, sir."

"It would seem that the first move is ours," Gendo remarked. "How likely is it that we'll be able to destroy it while it's in orbit?"

"The MAGI calculates that our most powerful positron cannon has a 0.0000001 percent chance of destroying the Angel at this distance," Makoto answered, his tone apologetic.

"Then it appears that we'll have to coax it down," Gendo said. "Deploy the Evangelions the moment the pilots get into them, and have them attempt to shoot down the target. If nothing else, it should at least get the Angel to come closer."

Kaji turned his head just enough to glance at the Commander from the corner of his eye. Part of him was admittedly relieved to have the responsibility of determining their game plan taken away from him, greatly relieved. On the other hand…

_He's using the pilots as bait,_ the long-haired man thought with a grimace.

Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it.

* * *

Soaring through the air so quickly that the world blurred around her, her form radiating emerald light, and blissfully unaware of the threat bearing down on Tokyo-3, Green Lantern was having a good time.

_Why did I ever let them promote me out of the field?_ She wondered, relishing the potent combination of anxiety and excitement (and adrenaline) that came with the knowledge that she was about to engage the enemy.

"Ring, ETA," she said.

_"At your current pace, you will reach Tokita's current location in just under two minutes,"_ the ring reported.

"Too slow," she decided, willing herself to even greater speed.

_"ETA is now under one minute,"_ the ring reported.

Green Lantern's lips curled upwards. "Better."

Seconds later, the emerald superwoman came to an abrupt halt, quickly surveying the scene. In the time that it had taken her to get from her office in the NERV pyramid, the JSSDF had sent several Humvees and another attack helicopter at Tokita. All of them were laying in smoking heaps on the ground, reduced to so much scrap metal by the deformed man's mental powers.

Tokita himself was still heading down the highway in his floating wheelchair. If he noticed the Green Lantern, he gave no sign of it.

"Yo, buddy! Pull that thing over!" she yelled at him, creating a construct of a stop sign and positioning it right before him.

Tokita came to a halt before it. Slowly, the wheelchair tilted in the air so Tokita faced her. Green Lantern looked at the man's deformed visage, expecting to see anger, or contempt, or malice. However, there was no expression to be found in his slack face, and even his eyes looked dull. The sheer emptiness was somehow more disturbing than any amount of fury could have been, and the emerald superwoman had to resist the urge to shiver at the sight.

Then she felt his mind slam into hers with the force of a battering ram.

_**"Not even you can stop me, Green Lantern!"**_ His voice roared inside her head, deafeningly loud.

The emerald superwoman cried out in agony, clutching at her head as she tumbled to the ground, barely even noticing the pain of impact. The green aura surrounding her body flickered and then died.

She felt like she was drowning, not in water, but in thoughts and emotions; it wasn't oxygen she was struggling for, it was clear thoughts. It took everything that the Green Lantern had not to lose herself entirely in the psychic tide. Tokita's anger, his pain, and his pride all ran so deep they seemed ready to swallow her whole.

_No…_

Somehow, Green Lantern managed to make it to her hands and knees and looked up at Tokita, who was now looming over her, that same completely blank expression still on his mutated face. Clenching her teeth, she balled her right hand into a fist and looked down at the ring on her middle finger. Even as her vision swam, her ring of power was mercifully solid, an island of stability in the sea of madness Tokita had unleashed.

_Come on,_ she urged herself. _Fight!_

It was _so_ hard to concrete right then, but she tried anyway, doing her best to funnel her will into her ring. The power that usually came so easily to her had become slippery somehow, but she just barely managed to get the ring to glow. Hope flared within her.

_**"None of that now!"**_ Tokita roared, and pain exploded behind Green Lantern's eyes.

The jade superwoman screamed, collapsing and then writhing in agony on the asphalt. Distantly, she remembered the ring telling her that it could be used as a telepathic inhibitor. She had opted to skip that lesson, thinking she'd never have a use for it, at least so long as she remained on Earth.

Shows what she knew.

Then, just as the torture became too much to bear, everything changed.

Which wasn't to say her situation better, just different. Tokita switched tactics, halting his efforts to force pain upon her and consume her mind with the strength of his negative emotions. Rather than forcing things _into_ her mind, he started to take _from_ her mind.

Sensations and stimuli of all kinds rushed past her, almost too quickly for her to comprehend. They swirled around her as ethereal as half forgotten dreams and yet they were so, so vivid.

She heard her mother, dead for years and years now, calling her name and laughing as though she was right there next to her.

She felt hot tears fill her eyes as Daddy left them _again_ for another one of his stupid work trips.

She tasted the lips of the first boy she'd ever kissed, not long before the Katsuragi expedition had set out for the South Pole.

She smelled the blood on the ice as she stared up at the First Angel in horror.

_**"Oh, my, quite the eventful life you've lived,"**_ Tokita said, his rage briefly taking a backseat to curiosity.

He began to paw through her memories much more intently, his mental intrusion reminding her of the groping hands she encountered every time she'd found herself stuck on a crowded subway car, except that this was a far greater violation than that had ever been.

_**"You work for NERV, Misato Katsuragi,"**_ he said, not taking long to make this discovery. _**"Yet you didn't know that they sabotaged the Jet Alone. Or should I say that you knew but had no proof, the same as myself? How interesting."**_

"Get out of my head, Tokita," she growled.

_**"And why should I? It's SO interesting in here,"**_ he breathed, sounding disturbingly stimulated by the experience.

Green Lantern struggled mightily against him, but she could find no way to block his intrusions into her mind; she could deny him no shred of her past. Her most intimate moments with Kaji, the still classified missions she'd undertaken while working directly for the UN Army, the secrets of Asuka's past which she'd read about in the Second Child's records, and even the thoughts she'd had about Shinji which she would have never, _ever_ divulged to anyone. All of it was laid bare before her attacker.

Then Tokita came to a very recent memory. One of her sitting in a dark, solitary confinement cell with its sole occupant, a miserable young man who'd been through far more hell than anyone should have to endure. She had done her best to comfort him, then, to show him how great her affection for him was, and as an expression of her gratitude for his efforts against the Angels, she pursed her lips, leaning toward his cheek…

_"No!_" she shouted, anger filling her as Tokita tried to violate even that memory. "That's _mine!_"

With a titanic effort, Green Lantern poured every scrap of willpower she could muster into her ring. It wasn't much…just enough to release a massive flash of emerald light.

Tokita unleashed a psychic scream of wordless rage and pain as the radiance stabbed at his eyes, momentarily blinding him. Most of the people within a 50 kilometer radius of the confrontation developed migraine headaches as a result, but his hold on Green Lantern weakened considerably.

Weakened, but did not disappear.

"Ring," Green Lantern gasped. "Give me a crash course on using you to block telepathic attacks. Now."

* * *

Asuka Langley Soryu hummed cheerfully to herself as directed Unit Two's movements, assembling the massive position rifle with practiced ease.

Her self-confidence still at an all-time high following her slaying of the Fourteenth Angel, the redhead felt certain that she would be able to defeat this one as well. Her only real concern was that Green Lantern would show up to try and steal the kill, but so far, NERV hadn't seen hadn't seen hide nor hair of the emerald avenger.

"All right, Asuka," Kaji's voice entered her plug as a communications window popped up on her screen, "Shinji and Rei have both been deployed to separate positions with their own positron weapons. But since your sync ratio's the highest, you get the biggest gun. Given how far away this Angel is right now, you're the only one with any realistic chance at hurting it."

Music to the redhead's ears. She had point, and Kaji was on hand to watch her victory. Asuka made a mental note to see about buying a lottery ticket once the battle was over, because this was obviously her lucky day.

"All right, I'm ready," she announced as she finished assembling the gun.

Using a nearby skyscraper to serve as a mount for the weapon's absurdly long barrel, the redhead lightly grasped the trigger, ready to fire. With a thought from her, a visor emerged from the back of her chair and lowered itself over her face. A blinking reticule appeared before her eyes as Unit Two's targeting computer came to life.

"Where are you?" she muttered to herself as she tried to get a target lock.

The Angel was beyond the maximum range of the targeting systems, so Asuka knew that she wouldn't be able to get a lock easily. In fact, she really shouldn't be able to get a lock at all, but the Evangelions had managed to do things that they really shouldn't have been able to pull off several times now. She was confident that EVA could do it again.

The targeting computer let out a weak tone.

"There you are," Asuka said with a broad grin.

She was about to squeeze the trigger when a shaft of light came down from the heavens, breaking through the layer of clouds and shining directly upon Unit Two.

Instantly, the Second Child felt a presence—a presence that was powerful, malicious, and most of all, _alien_—pressing against her mind, assaulting mental walls she'd never even known she _had_ until that moment.

Those walls almost immediately started to buckle and crack beneath the force of the Angel's attack, allowing tendrils of its loathsome intelligence to make contact with her raw mind.

The Second Child screamed, grabbing her head as Unit Two stumbled backwards, soon tripping and falling, flattening a small office building as it landed.

"No!" Asuka shrieked. "No! Stay the hell out of my mind!"

* * *

"Give up already, Tokita," Green Lantern said, materializing a jade duplicate of her trusty Heckler & Koch and pointing it at the mutated man. "This isn't going to end well for you."

Tokita's slack face remained as expressionless as ever. _**"You overestimate your powers, Green Lantern."**_ He told her, and his mental voice sounded completely unafraid. _**"Go ahead and do it."**_

The emerald avenger pulled the trigger of her weapon three times, sending emerald bullets flying.

Tokita vanished a second before the rounds could strike him, reappearing about a dozen meters to the left of his previous position.

_**"Your mind is still clear to me,"**_ he informed her.

A piece of broken asphalt suddenly went spinning through the air, propelled by Tokita's telekinetic powers. It was right on course to hit Green Lantern directly in the face. Quick as lightning, a ribbon emerald light burst from the superwoman's ring, immediately expanding and taking on the shape of a simple shield.

Then Green Lantern blinked, and when she opened her eyes again, the chunk of asphalt was coming at her from a slightly different direction than it had been before. She rushed to move her shield, but she was just a little bit too slow, and the improvised missile struck her directly in the shoulder.

Her personal force field dampened the blow somewhat, but it still hurt it like hell. Green Lantern had to clamp her jaw shut to keep from crying out in pain.

_**"You bear some responsibly for what has happened to me,"**_ Tokita said. _**"But it's a relatively small portion. Get out of my way, and I may let you live."**_

She scowled darkly in response. Using her new knowledge and her power ring, she was able to mount some defense against his telepathic abilities by visualizing a wall protecting her mind.

This was actually significantly harder than it sounded; if she did it incorrectly, she'd form a construct inside her own skull and kill herself instantly. Yet despite the danger, she had no choice but to do it. Unfortunately, though she managed to not accidentally commit suicide, her mental barrier was far from perfect, allowing Tokita enough access to her mind to warp her perceptions slightly.

No doubt about it, her situation was grim.

"Go to hell!" she barked. "I'm not about to run away from the likes of _you!_"

The emerald superwoman heard his wordless growl inside her head.

A small, abandoned car rose off the ground, then went speeding toward her. Green Lantern instantly projected a force bubble around herself and was unsurprised when the car seemed to change locations at the last second, crashing into a different part of the emerald sphere than she would have expected.

"My turn," she said.

The bubble of jade light seemed to shatter, breaking into pieces. Those pieces quickly changed shape, forming several dozen darts of emerald radiance.

Green Lantern smirked, and the beams of light streaked out in all directions around her. One of them struck Tokita almost dead on, knocking him and his wheelchair to the ground.

As soon as he hit the pavement, Green Lantern felt the telepathic pressure fade from her mind. She hadn't really noticed it, or how annoying it was, until it was absent at last.

She started walking toward Tokita, who was laying on the ground, still strapped into his wheelchair. The deformed man seemed incapable of getting up, but the emerald superwoman didn't let her guard down, just in case he was playing possum.

Especially as she got near him. She could literally _feel_ the hatred radiating off of his twisted body.

"So, ready to go into custody yet, or…?"

She trailed off as she saw an immense beam of light breaking through the clouds in the distance, shining down on Tokyo-3.

"What the hell is that?" she wondered aloud, most definitely having a bad feeling about it.

_**"The Angel is attacking the Evangelions."**_ Tokita informed her.

"Wha—?"

The deformed man lashed out with a wave of telekinetic force before she could even finish her brief exclamation, sending Green Lantern careening through the air. The emerald superwoman crashed right into the still burning remains of one of the Humvees the JSSDF had thrown at Tokita. Her force field protected her from the worst of the impact, but it was still nothing short of bone jarring.

Green Lantern barely registered the pain. Deciding to leave the telepath to the military after all, the luminous superwoman streaked upwards, intending to follow that beam of light to its source and slay the beast before it could harm the pilots.

Only to have an invisible hand wrap itself around her boot and yank sharply, sending her plunging back toward the Earth. She struck the highway with enough force to create the mother of all potholes.

_**"We're not done here, Lantern."**_ Tokita informed her as he and his wheelchair floated back up into the air, returning to an upright position.

"You son of a bitch," Green Lantern growled. "You knew that thing was coming, didn't you?"

_**"I wanted to strike at NERV while they were distracted,"**_ he confirmed. _**"I would have let you go, but now that I know you work for them, I know that you share in their guilt, so you have to die, too."**_

Green Lantern didn't bother to reply with any witty quip or defiant remark. Tokita was now preventing her from helping the pilots, from helping Shinji. He was going down, she decided, as her ring of power glowed with a fierce emerald light.

* * *

Shinji was firing one of NERV's few positron rifles up into the air.

It was doing _absolutely nothing._

"That's enough, Third Child!" his father's stern voice entered his plug. "You're simply wasting ammunition. You need to obtain a solid target lock first."

"I can't!" Shinji argued. "The thing is still too far away! The targeting system can't detect the Angel at all, much less lock onto it!"

"Firing blinding into the sky hardly helps matters," Gendo said, his tone dangerous.

"This is insane," Shinji said. "I have to go help Asuka."

He spared a glance at Unit Two; the crimson Evangelion actually looked like it was trying to curl up into a ball. Whether deliberately or by chance, the redhead had activated her EVA's comm. system and was broadcasting to NERV HQ and the other two pilots. The sound of her agonized screams was nothing short of heart wrenching.

Apparently realizing what was so upsetting the pilot of Unit One, Gendo said something that Shinji couldn't hear to someone on the command center. An instant later, the channel between his EVA and Unit Two closed.

The Commander then gave Shinji a look, as though asking if that was better.

The Third Child could only blink stupidly at his father for a moment, unable to believe that anyone could be so callous. Not being able to hear Asuka screaming didn't improve anything; he knew she was still in enormous pain.

His expression hardened as he recovered from his brief moment of shock. Making a decision, Shinji carefully lowered the massive positron rifle to the ground, convinced that the thing would do him no good against this Angel, regardless of how much time he spent trying to get a target lock.

Gendo immediately realized what he was doing. "Third Child, hold position and continue to seek a target lock on the Angel."

It was a simple statement and the kind of almost generic order that could conceivably have been issued during any number of Angel battles. Perhaps it even _had_ been given before, and Shinji just couldn't recall the occasion off-hand.

However, the tone of his father's voice was something new; it utterly _dripped_ menace, far surpassing even the most chilling pronouncements he'd heard the Commander make in the past. With an inflection of his voice, the Commander had promised _terrible_ consequences if Shinji disobeyed him.

It was enough to give the Third Child pause, when he had been bound and determined to go to Asuka's aid a mere moment before.

Then the audio feed from Unit Two abruptly resumed, and Shinji commanded Unit One to take off toward its crimson counterpart at a full sprint.

* * *

On the command center, Gendo turned to glare at Kaji, who had just hit the button to turn Unit Two's communications links back on.

"Oops," the long-haired man said, not doing a very good job of faking a contrite attitude. "My finger must have slipped."

* * *

Shinji didn't think he'd ever pushed Unit One quite this hard.

The Evangelion raced toward Asuka's position, its every footstep tearing up the streets, sending great chunks of black asphalt flying through the air as its long stride ate up the distance between it and the red colossus.

His plan was quite simple. He would run to Unit Two, grab hold of it, and pull it out of the Angel's ray of light without so much as slowing down.

He didn't know exactly what the Angel was doing to Asuka, but it was obvious how painful it was. Shinji didn't want to be in the Angel's attack a second longer than was necessary.

_Just keep running,_ he told himself. _Grab Unit Two and be gone and before whatever it is affects you._

It would be like the volcano all over again, he told himself, just with fewer burning sensations. He would save Asuka, and then NERV could figure out some other way of killing the Angel.

After which, he could only hope that his father didn't have him shot for this fresh act of insubordination.

_Just run,_ he told himself._ Don't stop for anything._

Unit One's foot just barely entered the beam of light.

For the barest fraction of a second, Shinji was no longer inside an Evangelion racing to save his fellow pilot.

No, instead, he was on a busy train platform, surrounded by busy people with expressions that ranged from vaguely curious to somewhat sympathetic. Mommy had died only days ago while he'd watched. Mommy had died, and he didn't even understand why or how.

Now Daddy was leaving him. Daddy said he had to live with his uncle now. Shinji didn't understand that either. He didn't know why Daddy didn't want him anymore. Was there something wrong with him? Was he not a good enough son?

…was the accident that killed Mommy _his_ fault somehow?

Shinji screamed then, recoiling in pure horror at the memory. Somehow he managed to _push_ back against the Angel, and he was back inside Unit One.

Unfortunately, the moment he'd spent in the past was one too many; Unit One tripped and went sprawling, landing right on its face in the middle of the circle of light generated by the Angel. He was within arm's reach of Unit Two, but rescuing Asuka suddenly seemed like a gigantic, nearly impossible labor.

He could feel the Angel pressing against his mind, struggling to take him back to that awful place. To the moment he had spent more than two-thirds of his life trying not to think about.

And it _hurt_. It hurt more than the time the Third Angel had gouged out Unit One's eye. It hurt more than the time he'd sent his Evangelion leaping into molten lava.

Mustering every ounce of willpower he had, the Third Child commanded Unit One to reach for its crimson counterpart, hoping it might still be possible to drag Asuka and himself outside the Angel's terrible light.

Then the telepathic pressure on his mind abruptly increased, and all Shinji Ikari could do was clutch at his head and scream.

* * *

_**"Die, Lantern!"**_

The main blades from one of the JSSDF's destroyed attack helicopters went flying toward Green Lantern, spinning more quickly than they ever had before. Reacting quickly, the emerald superwoman formed a construct of a massive hand, which casually batted the makeshift projectile out of the sky, sending it to crashing harmlessly into the ground.

Hoping to seize the initiative, Green Lantern made her construct of a hand turn into a fist, which went streaking toward Tokita, holding the promise of a one hit knock-out.

The telepath assaulted her mental barriers, quickly finding a tiny crack in her defenses which he didn't hesitate to exploit. She immediately moved to repel his presence from her consciousness, but by then it was too late. Tokita had just enough time to disrupt her focus, and her ring construct almost instantly lost all coherency, dissipating into nothingness before it could touch the deformed man.

Green Lantern grit her teeth, glaring at Tokita. They had been stuck at a stalemate for several minutes now. He had given up on the tactic of messing with her perceptions, instead opting to break her concentration with a brute force attack whenever she was about to hit him. By the same token, though, he couldn't seem to do that and launch an offensive at the same time.

They were stuck, it seemed.

"Damn it, Tokita, enough," Green Lantern hissed, resorting to trying to talk him down. "How do you think this is going to end? If you beat me, the military will start lobbing heavy ordnance against you soon. There's no damn way you can survive an N2 strike. They'll kill you."

_**"Not before I've had my revenge."**_ He countered.

"You idiot, is your revenge really worth dying for?" she demanded.

Tokita released the telepathic equivalent of a chuckle. _**"Now that's truly ironic, coming from **_**you**_**."**_ He pointed out, and Green Lantern winced. _**"Did you already forget that I know all your secrets? I know everything that makes you…oh."**_ He interrupted himself, sounding mildly surprised.

"What?" Green Lantern demanded, despite her better judgment.

_**"The Angel's attacking two of the pilots' minds now."**_ Tokita replied.

The deformed man sent along a psychic image along with that thought, and against her will, Green Lantern suddenly "saw" Shinji and Asuka, becoming aware of just how much agony they were in.

Her horror at the scene nearly overwhelmed her, and for just a moment, her mental defenses nearly fell. Tokita responded instantly with the psychic equivalent of a sucker punch, sending a wave of telepathic force at her at the exact same moment he launched a telekinetic blow at her abdomen. Green Lantern suddenly found herself simultaneously disoriented and in pain. The next thing she knew, she was on her knees on the nearly abandoned highway.

Quickly moving to capitalize on his chance, Tokita gave a telekinetic yank, pulling her power ring, trying to wrest it from her finger.

He damn near succeeded, too, but Green Lantern somehow found the presence of mind to close her fist just in time, preventing the loss of her ring. Her emerald aura flared around her as she succeeded in repelling his latest psychic attack, and her feet rose about a meter off the ground as she pointed her ring at him.

She almost fired an energy beam at him but stopped herself at the last moment.

The scene he had just shown her had been so damn _vivid_ and much too clear to be fake. It hadn't just been sight and sound, either; she had _felt_ how much agony they were in, and she knew they were struggling against the Angel's attack. It was obvious that their pain would only get worse once their resistance crumbled, as it doubtlessly would soon.

She couldn't let that happen. She couldn't _fail_ again.

The continued stalemate with Tokita was unacceptable.

"Enough," she said, letting her force field dim and then vanish, her feet slowly returning to the ground.

_**"What?"**_ He asked, bewildered.

"This is insane," she said. "Look, if you're really that determined to tear NERV headquarters down, then we can fight over that later. But right now, you have to let me go and stop that Angel!"

_**"I don't have to let you do anything."**_ Tokita growled in response.

"For god's sake, there are two people being tortured by that thing right now!" Green Lantern yelled, her jade eyes flashing with anger.

_**"So? They work for NERV."**_

Green Lantern only barely restrained herself from going with her first impulse, which was to fire both energy beams and expletives at the deformed man.

She took a deep breath. "Look, I realized that you got completely screwed over by NERV," she said. "The organization wronged you. _I_ wronged you. When I realized that the Jet Alone's password had been changed, and when it shut down right before the reactor melted down, I _knew_ that it had been sabotaged. I kept quiet about it, because I truly believed that it would be the end of damn world if Evangelion was replaced by the Jet Alone, but that never made it fair to you. I'm sorry for how much you've suffered because of NERV."

Tokita's slack face remained as expressionless as ever, but the mutated man backed up just as a tiny bit, as though recoiling slightly in surprise.

"But what you have to understand is that the two people being tortured by the Angel aren't responsible for the bad things that have happened to you," Green Lantern continued, her voice increasing in volume. "They're a couple of fourteen-year-olds who had no _idea_ about the JA sabotage, and they've both already suffered _so_ much. You looked into my mind and saw how much pain they've already endured. They don't deserve to suffer any more."

Tokita didn't respond, and Green Lantern decided that she needed to take a risk if she was going to convince him.

She dropped her mental defenses.

The mutated man was so surprised by this move that he failed to immediately attack her now vulnerable mind, and Green Lantern seized upon those precious moments. She brought thoughts of Shinji and Asuka—of how _she_ saw Shinji and Asuka—to the forefront of her brain. She showed him the German redhead, who was so often short tempered and overly sensitive to every perceived slight, but who also had a rarely seen softer side and was one of the most determined, hardest working people she'd ever met. She showed him Shinji, who was so timid and quiet most of the time, yet was often _so_ brave in the face of Angel attacks.

"Please, Tokita," Green Lantern said. "We've always been on opposite sides, but I know that you're a good man. You gave me the Jet Alone's password during the demonstration, even though it would make your bosses angry, because it was the right thing to do. Do the right thing again."

There was a long pause. For Green Lantern, it felt like an eternity.

_**"God **_**damn**_** you, Lantern!"**_ Tokita finally hissed.

She felt the eerie psychic touch of his mind withdrawing from hers, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Green Lantern was about to thank him when his floating chair turned, tilting so that Tokita was looking up at the sky. Unsure of his intensions, the emerald superwoman briefly hesitated.

Then her eyes widened as thin streams of blood started to come from his nose, his eyes, even his ears. In the distance, the beam of light that the Angel was shining down on Tokyo-3 started to flicker like an old fluorescent bulb, and comprehension dawned for Green Lantern. The man she'd been doing battle with two minutes prior was engaging the Angel in telepathic combat, and though it was obviously costing him, he was _winning_.

"Tokita-san," she breathed.

_**"What the hell are you waiting for?"**_ He demanded in obvious irritation. _**"GO!"**_

The jade superwoman didn't need to be told twice. She took off into the sky, leaving a green trail behind her like an emerald comet. In seconds, she broke the sound barrier, causing the roar of thunder to roll across the area. Not long after that, the blue sky above her gave way to diamond-studded ebony as she left the Earth's atmosphere, and the Angel came into view.

It was beautiful, having the appearance of massive wings made from glowing pink crystal. However, a few small sections at the edges of the creature had taken on a blackened and shriveled look. Apparently, Tokita wasn't the only one feeling the strain.

Green Lantern decided that she wasn't interested in seeing which telepath triumphed over the other. She concentrated, and a ribbon of jade light burst forth from her ring, rapidly growing and taking on the shape of the experimental positron rifle that NERV had used to destroy the Fifth Angel.

Of course, in that battle, Unit One had sniped the blue diamond from across Lake Ashi. Green Lantern's emerald duplicate of the enormous gun was at point blank range with the flickering Angel.

"This is for Shinji and Asuka," she said quietly before pulling the trigger.

A beam of green light that rivaled the sun itself in sheer intensity burst forth from the barrel of the weapon, striking the middle of the Angel's body. An orange barrier flashed into being just before it could connect, and the AT field withstood the force of the attack.

For a few fractions of a second.

Then the barrier buckled, allowing the bolt of light to complete its deadly journey. It went straight through the Angel's crystalline body without slowing down.

A telepathic shriek ripped through space, causing Green Lantern to wince and clutch at her head as she allowed her construct to fade. It was as bad as nails scratching a chalkboard, and it was _inside_ her head.

Then, silence. The Angel's previously luminous body went dark and started to curl up like a dead insect.

"Finally," the emerald avenger said, relieved that this battle was over. "Now to get back."

* * *

Far, far below the Green Lantern, the light that had been shining down on Tokyo-3 abruptly went from flicking to completely out. Almost simultaneously, Shinji and Asuka both started to slowly uncurl from their fetal positions, looking around warily. Neither could quite believe that their ordeal had come to an end.

"Is it over?" Asuka asked, opening a communications link to Unit One. The redhead sounded unusually subdued, almost timid.

"I…I think so," Shinji said. "Did the Angel…did you…?"

Asuka didn't need to ask what he was talking about. "No," she said. "But it was damn close."

"Same here," Shinji replied, grimacing as he contemplated just how near the Angel had come to breaching the sanctum of his mind.

He didn't even want to imagine what it would have been like, had it succeeded.

A communications window from NERV HQ popped up on both Evangelions' HUDs, showing Kaji's face. "We're not reading a blue pattern any longer," he told them. "Judging from the big flash of green light, I think it's safe to say that Green Lantern got this one."

"Good for her," Asuka said, too relieved and shaken to be jealous.

"This battle is over," Kaji continued. "Return to base."

"With pleasure," Shinji breathed.

Whatever punishment he might have to endure for disobeying orders, there was no way it could compare to the Angel's attack.

* * *

Tokita was utterly exhausted. After doing telepathic combat with the Angel, he didn't even have the strength to levitate his chair any longer.

Which meant that all he could do was watch and observe as the JSSDF's forces arrived to cart him off.

"I say we just shoot the bastard," one of them said. "After what he did today…"

"We're supposed to take him in alive if possible," said a lieutenant, who appeared to be in charge of the small squad of men. "I don't get it, either, but the orders came right from the top." He added.

"Why couldn't Green Lantern have just offed him?" the first soldier wondered aloud. "Bastard at least deserves to be roughed up a lot more!"

He smacked Tokita's oversized head, then, sending waves of pain through the deformed man.

_**"Don't do that!"**_ He somehow mustered the strength to communicate telepathically.

"Or what?" the soldier demanded. "You were doing a real number on us before, but you don't seem so tough now."

He raised his hand to strike Tokita again, and the deformed man could only gaze up at the soldier, a dark look in his eyes.

How typical. He had aided Green Lantern, and this was what he got for it. While she would return to Tokyo-3 and receive great praise from the public for killing the Angel, he was about to be subjected to god only knew what.

"Don't you touch him!"

A glowing green hand grabbed the soldier's wrist before he could hit Tokita again, stopping him cold.

"Don't you touch him," Green Lantern repeated as she came down for a landing. "He deserves a lot better than that."

"He's a god damn monster!" the soldier snapped.

"He's a good man who's been through a lot of shit lately and lost it for a while," Green Lantern countered, glaring at the soldier and all but daring him to argue.

The young man was not up to the challenge.

"Where are you taking him?" Green Lantern demanded, turning to the officer in charge.

"To an undisclosed location," the lieutenant answered.

Green Lantern's eyes narrowed.

"Look, he needs treatment," the lieutenant said, sounding exasperated. "So unless you've got a convenient lab and medical facility that specializes in unusual maladies, he has to come with us."

There was a long tense pause. Finally, Green Lantern marched up to the lieutenant, who did his best not to flinch as she drew near.

"Take him. But make sure to tell your superiors that they'll answer to me if he's mistreated," she said, shaking a finger at him. "I _will_ be checking."

"Understood, ma'am," the lieutenant said.

_**"Thank you,"**_ Tokita said to Green Lantern as the soldiers carefully started to load him onto a military medical transport.

"Least I could do," the emerald superwoman replied. "Hey, about my secrets…"

_**"I won't tell anyone,"**_ Tokita pledged.

"Thank you," Green Lantern said, then gave him a jaunty little salute. "I'll be seeing you."

With that, she flew off, heading back toward Tokyo-3.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** And so Shiro Tokita has his Hector Hammond moment. I tried to make him as creepy as the real one, but honestly, I don't think I really succeeded. It didn't help that there was actually a decent person beneath the smug corporate spokesman in the one episode where he showed up.

Anyway, as always, thanks to all my readers and reviewers, and thanks to my beta reader as well.

* * *

Omake

Ritsuko's Brain Go Boom

"I still don't get why you feel the need to do these things yourself, Rits," Misato grumped as she followed her friend into the examination room inside NERV Medical. "Though then again, I don't see why we have to do this at all." She added, scowling slightly.

"Regs," Ritsuko said succinctly. "They come with life in the military. And wouldn't you rather have me conducting your physical, instead of someone you don't even know."

"So you do this for my sake?" Misato asked, somewhat skeptically.

Ritsuko just made a noncommittal noise in response.

In truth, the bottle blonde didn't do it for Misato's sake. Though she wasn't completely unsympathetic to her friend's loathing for the regular, mandated checkups, there were so many demands on her time that she never would have cleared a block of her schedule purely to handhold Misato through the process.

No, her reason for conducting the other woman's physicals herself was rather more…petty. Ever since the two of them had become friends in college, countless men had practically walked right over Ritsuko to try their luck with Misato. Where the bottle blonde often came off as cold and standoffish, Misato oozed sex appeal, and while Ritsuko had never considered herself unattractive, she knew she was rather plain when compared to her friend.

Ritsuko would never give voice to this jealousy, for fear of endangering one of her few friendships. However, she gained a certain malicious satisfaction from personally confirming that, as Misato got older, her slovenly lifestyle was slowly but surely beginning to catch up with her.

"Step on the scale, Misato," she ordered.

Her friend did so, and Ritsuko's eye twitched at the results. "Step off for a moment and let me recalibrate this thing," she said.

Misato did so, and Ritsuko fiddled with the scale, eventually telling the Ops Director to get back on. She did so, and again, the scale gave the same result as it had last time.

"You…seem to have lost a few pounds," the scientist noted, doing her best to keep her disappointment out of her voice. "Let's move onto the next thing…"

For the next several minutes, Ritsuko put Misato through every test she could reasonably get away with, searching for a sign of something that clearly wasn't there.

"All right, we're done," she declared at last.

"So how long do I have to live, doc?" Misato asked with a little smirk.

"I'd give you another sixty or seventy years," Ritsuko quipped dryly. "I…honestly have no idea how, but you're in excellent physical shape. You've got the body of a woman ten years your junior, in fact."

To the scientist's extreme annoyance, her friend didn't even have the decency to look very surprised by that. "So, since I'm in such good shape, can I skip the next physical?" she asked.

"No," Ritsuko said flatly.

Unsurprised, Misato shrugged. "Figured it couldn't hurt to ask."

The bottle blonde pinched the bridge of her nose. "We're done, Misato," she said.

"All right, see ya," the Ops Director replied, practically skipping out of the room with youthful energy.

Ritsuko silently counted to twenty. When that didn't work, she inhaled as deeply as she could.

It was said that all of Tokyo-3 heard her scream that day.


	14. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen:** Lingering Fears

In the past, Misato had gone to a lot of different places with Kaji, some very romantic, others not so much.

The dark alley where she found herself meeting him now definitely fit into the "not so much" category.

"I seem to remember you having better taste in venues," she grumbled as she walked up to him.

He was standing beneath the fire escape of the building he was currently leaning up against, and while the shadow it cast did little to really conceal his features (it was the middle of the day, after all), it did give him an air of mystery.

This, combined with the way he was smoking a cigarette, made Misato think he was deliberately aiming for the whole "Deepthroat" look.

"Chiron's having me watched wherever I go, on the pretext of protecting NERV's Operations Director," Kaji informed her. "I had to slip away for this, so meeting you in a nice bar just really wasn't in the cards."

"I'll have you know I quit drinking," she grumbled.

"Oh, right, I forgot."

"And couldn't you have made it look like were just meeting some place casually, as friends?" she asked. "That wouldn't arouse too much suspicion."

"True, but I didn't want Section Two to know I've had _any_ contact with you, outside of any communication we have at work, which they can monitor, of course," he said.

"Fine, whatever," she finally relented. Then, in a lower voice, "So, you know something about where Fuyutski really is?"

Kaji nodded. "The Commanders had some sort of…falling out with the Committee," he said. "I don't know as many of the details as I'd like."

Misato frowned. "So you're saying the Committee's response was to kidnap him?" she whispered.

Kaji nodded.

"Doesn't sound like the sort of thing a UN subcommittee would do," Misato remarked.

"There's more to the Committee than meets the eye," Kaji said darkly.

Misato all but rolled her eyes. "My, but we're being cryptic, aren't we?" she asked.

Kaji shrugged and gave her a crooked smile. "One of the few perks of my job, and I don't mean the Ops Director post," he said. "So far as I can tell, that job has _no_ perks."

Misato couldn't refrain from smirking. "Tell me about it," she said but quickly grew serious again. "So, I hope you didn't ask me to come here just so you could be obnoxiously mysterious."

"No, I can obnoxiously mysterious at NERV headquarters," Kaji quipped.

"So, what _are_ you going to tell me, smartass?" Misato asked.

"I can give you Fuyutski's location," Kaji said. "If you promise to tell me anything he should happen to tell you during the rescue."

"No promise to come back alive?" Misato asked.

"I have faith you'd do that whether I told you to or not," Kaji said.

"That may be the nicest thing you've ever said to me," Misato smirked. "Okay, I agree to your terms. Now, spill."

* * *

The silence in the apartment was deafening.

Normally, Shinji didn't have a problem with quiet. Just the opposite, in fact; he tended to relish it, especially since he came to Tokyo-3 and moments of peace had become all too rare.

Yet ever since the Fifteenth Angel had attacked…

He shuddered at the memory and commanded himself, again, not to think about it. As usual, he wasn't very successful when it came to bossing himself around.

He had thought it was a real slap on the wrist when his father had punished his insubordination with a day in solitary confinement, but it had turned out to be quite the penalty indeed; it had given him a solid 24 hours to do nothing but think about the battle.

The Angel had not managed to truly enter his mind—frankly, he didn't even want to imagine about how much of a mess he'd be if it had. However, it had come close, and that had shaken him to his core.

The mind was supposed to be sacred. It was supposed to be the one place where, no matter what happened, his secrets would be safe, inviolate unless he gave them voice or else somehow recorded them in a way others could get at.

He had always valued that, and he had only come to value it more since coming to Tokyo-3. Shinji had had many thoughts he wasn't proud of over the course of his life, and they had only multiplied in number since he'd been pressed into piloting Evangelion that first time; it was probably inevitable for someone in his situation, but that didn't make it right.

He'd had revenge fantasies. He had nursed cowardly desires both simple and elaborate. He had imagined himself just boarding a train and leaving Tokyo-3 more times than he could count, abandoning the others to fight the Angels without Unit One. In his darkest moments, Shinji had even thought about performing that ultimate act of running away and ending it all for good.

He had always taken all these urges as proof that he was a coward, and that something was wrong with him, which was bad enough. However, the mere _thought_ of another seeing them in all their wretchedness…

He shivered.

With a great effort, the Third Child pulled himself back to the task at hand, which was setting out lunch on the kitchen table.

"Food's ready," he called.

Asuka emerged from her room and sat down at the table. "Thanks," she said, before she started to eat at a sedate pace.

Normally, getting a word of gratitude from the redhead was practically cause for celebration, but at the moment, Shinji would have much preferred some loud insult or complaint about his cooking. Anything other than the subdued attitude Asuka was currently displaying.

It was bad that he was so shaken by what had happened, but seeing the German pilot like this was even worse. For all her flaws, Shinji had always thought that Asuka was very brave, so seeing her so badly affected was a sign that the Angel's attack really _was_ that terrifying.

Yet even that wasn't the worst part.

"Asuka," he spoke up abruptly.

She looked surprised. "What?" she asked.

He hesitated, then finally said, "Nothing. Never mind."

Asuka hmphed and turned her attention back to her food.

Shinji shook his head at his own cowardice, but he didn't bother to try again. In the end, he just didn't seem to have the nerve to ask her if she thought any of the next Angels might be able to invade their minds like the Fifteenth had tried to do.

He was afraid she'd think, like he did, that it was very possible.

* * *

Having done special ops in some of the most dangerous parts of the post-Impact world for several years prior to joining NERV, Misato was no stranger to infiltrating enemy bases.

Even so, busting into the facility where Fuyutski was being kept was something of a new experience for her. She was used to getting into the strongholds of Third World warlords, who usually located their headquarters in the middle of nowhere, not the middle of modern urban centers.

She'd have to worry about collateral damage, not to mention law enforcement coming after her, if she blundered too badly.

"Ring, scan that building and give me a display of its defenses," Misato ordered, standing a safe distance away from the compound, which looked like an ordinary warehouse from the street.

The band of green metal was silent for a moment. Then, an emerald hologram appeared above it, highlighting everything that would be of interest to a would-be infiltrator such as herself.

There were a lot of things to highlight.

"Wow," Misato commented to herself, letting out a low whistle.

Though there was a surprisingly small number of guards around the compound (the smaller the staff, the fewer potential leaks, she supposed), it was clear that the Committee had spared absolutely no expense. Security cameras, motion detectors, and heat sensors were present all around and throughout the facility. The handful of guards were armed to the teeth and had been positioned for maximum effect, ensuring that no intruder could go through the facility without running into them.

_Of course, none of that would be a problem for Green Lantern,_ Misato thought. _So it really stinks that I can't do this as Green Lantern._

Kaji was a lot of things, but stupid definitely wasn't one of them. If he learned that the jade superwoman had liberated Fuyutski—and she had no doubt he would find out about the details of the Vice Commander's escape somehow—it would take him about two seconds to figure out that she was Green Lantern.

She wasn't entirely sure what he'd do with that information. The Kaji she'd known from college didn't have the malice in him to use it for something potentially wicked, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.

After all, back when they'd been in college, he hadn't been a spy, and she hadn't been the Ops Director. Back then, Misato never would've imagined that she could order teenagers to go to war, so who was she to say what Kaji was capable of doing now, if it was for a cause he felt was ultimately justified?

No, she definitely had to do this without any obvious use of her ring.

"Not enough time to be delicate," she decided, muttering to herself as she put on the black ski mask she'd brought with her and checked her Heckler & Koch to make sure the safety was off. "Guess I'll have to use the direct approach."

* * *

The sight of Gendo Ikari and Rei Ayanami walking through the hallways of NERV headquarters together was not unusual. Indeed, prior to the war, when the Commander had had significantly more time available, it had been so common that several people had started referring to Rei as Ikari's "pet" pilot.

Following that, some…exceedingly ugly rumors had started.

Gendo had made a point of discharging or otherwise firing anyone caught repeating said rumors, so while there were no doubt people in NERV who still believed them, no one dared to speak them aloud any longer.

Regardless of this bit of ugliness, one thing that most people noted, if they worked at NERV long enough, was that about the only time it was possible to see either of them smiling was when they were in each other's company. Indeed, it was usually a pretty safe bet that they would both look pretty happy whenever they got to spend time together under more or less casual circumstances.

Usually.

Lately, each of them had been noticing a change in the other. Gendo had observed that Rei was increasingly coming very close to actually talking back, a trend he found to be both disturbing and irritating, but which he'd had little time to deal with recently.

For her own part, Rei had noticed that Gendo was becoming colder and more brusque around her. It troubled her, and it made her wonder if this was the way that he appeared to everyone else.

"The Green Lantern was the one who defeated the last Angel," he commented. "Not NERV."

"Yes," Rei agreed, as there was no point in arguing that fact, even if she'd been inclined to; it was just the simple, undeniable truth.

"With Pilot Soryu neutralized by the Angel's attack, and Pilot Ikari was refusing to obey orders, you were the only pilot focusing on the Angel," Gendo continued.

"Yes," Rei agreed again, not at all certain where he was going with this line of conversation.

"You should have done better," he said.

Rei blinked. "I was unable to acquire a target lock because the equipment was not designed for—"

"Are you arguing with me?" Gendo interrupted her, his voice practically a growl.

The blue-haired pilot hesitated a moment, caught by surprise. Though Commander Ikari was often a demanding leader, it was unlike him to lay the blame at his underlings' feet when the problem was obviously something else, such as an inadequate targeting computer.

"No," she answered eventually, "I was attempting to point out that—"

"Stop talking," he commanded her curtly.

Rei immediately fell silent.

For a long moment, Gendo simply glared coldly at her, and for the first time, the First Child found herself truly understanding many of the things that the rank and file NERV personnel said about the Commander behind his back.

"I expect you to do better next time," he said. "If you do not…well, don't forget that you can be replaced."

Rei inhaled sharply, almost but not quite gasping.

That she could be replaced if she died—that she indeed _had_ been replaced once already—was something he had never kept from her. However, in the past, it had always been just a simple fact of her existence, not a…a…

_A threat,_ a little voice in her head finished.

Emotions she couldn't immediately identify but definitely didn't enjoy surged through her; her hands curled into fists as her palms started to sweat, and her heartbeat accelerated while her stomach roiled.

"I understand," she said softly.

Gendo continued to glare at her for moment, then he abruptly turned his gaze downwards to look at his gloved hand, an expression of surprise on his face.

"Excuse me," he said brusquely.

Feeling shaken by the encounter, Rei was only too willing to let him leave.

It might have just been her confusion at his unusual behavior, but when he had threatened her, she thought that his eyes had looked…yellow.

* * *

"Your time is up, Fuyutski," SEELE 01 announced grimly.

"Already?" the Vice Commander quipped. "It feels like I haven't been here for very long at all."

It was probably the single largest and most blatant lie he'd ever told. Though he had no way of tracking exactly how much time had passed since he'd been abducted by SEELE's forces, it had definitely felt like an eternity. He'd lost track of the number of times he'd found himself in this miserable room, tied to a folding chair and surrounded by the council's holographic avatars. He'd started to have nightmares about giant dominoes falling on him and crushing him.

_You'd think that a group of men as supposedly important as SEELE would have better things to do with their time,_ he mused.

"Impertinent right to the bitter end, Fuyutski?" SEELE 11 sneered.

"Why not?" the Vice Commander asked, sighing tiredly. "It's not like you won't kill me if I just act respectful and afraid of all of you."

"No, but we won't kill you if you simply answer our questions," SEELE 08 spoke up.

Fuyutski remained stonily silent.

"Come now, Professor," SEELE 08 said, sounding like reasonableness personified. "Why should you have to die to protect Gendo Ikari? What has he ever done to deserve such loyalty from you?"

Fuyutski couldn't help but snicker slightly at that. In all honestly, Gendo had done little or nothing to gain his loyalty. The man had gotten Fuyutski to join NERV when the old professor had gone to confront him so many years ago through threats and intimidation as much as anything else. Since then, the two had developed a relationship that was difficult to truly call friendship even on its best days; they were more like allies working toward a common goal, their interactions always maintaining a professional air to them.

It also didn't help that Ikari liked to give him the most boring jobs, like meeting with the city council, which existed largely for show and had no real power.

Yet what the eighth member of SEELE was completely failing to grasp was that it wasn't about Ikari for him. It wasn't even about saving his own increasingly wrinkled hide, anymore, obviously.

These days, it was about stopping SEELE, because while Fuyutski wouldn't have described Ikari's plans for Third Impact as good or beneficial to the human race, they were one _hell_ of a lot better than what the shadowy cabal had planned. After everything he'd been through, the lesser of two evils seemed like the best possible outcome.

Also…he had hopes that he'd get to see Yui, just one more time, before the end.

"One last chance, Fuyutski," SEELE 01 spoke up when the old professor didn't say anything. "Answer our questions now, or face the consequences."

Fuyutski stayed silent.

"Very well," SEELE 01 said. "Call the—"

The identity of the person Keel planned to summon would forever remain a mystery, because at that very moment the holographic monoliths quietly vanished from existence. The solitary light shining directly down on Fuyutski went dark as well; someone had cut the power.

Only moments later, he heard the sounds of people shouting from somewhere nearby in the building. This was soon followed by the roar of gunfire.

Shortly after that, the door to the holographic meeting chamber opened, allowing light to stream in. Fuyutski winced slightly as it hurt his eyes, but he forced himself to look at his rescuer.

The woman (and she was definitely a woman; the black top she was wearing did nothing to show off her assets, but they were obviously apparent all the same), was wearing a black ski mask and holding a smoking pistol.

Since Fuyutski had known he couldn't expect Kaji to come and get him, he suppose this mystery woman was as good a rescuer or any. That was, of course, assuming she wasn't actually his executioner.

"Hello," he greeted her mildly. "Have you come to save me?"

"Yes," she answered in a surprisingly low voice that he didn't recognize at all, and despite himself, Fuyutski felt a significant amount of tension leave his shoulders. "But first I want some damn answers."

"You're not the first," he commented.

She ignored the remark and went to the task of untying him. "Why the hell are you even here to begin with?" she demanded. "It's not exactly the UN's style to abduct people like this."

Whoever this woman was, Fuyutski mused, she didn't know enough about the situation to ask the questions he really didn't want to answer.

"The Human Instrumentality Committee is more than just a part of the UN," Fuyutski answered. "Much more."

"How much more?" the woman demanded.

"They're the tail that wags the dog. The power behind the throne. Pick whatever figure of speech you want," he shrugged as the ropes holding him finally went slack and half fell off of him. "The truth is, they have power over the rest of the rest of the organization."

"That still doesn't explain why they kidnapped you," she pointed out.

"The Committee has begun to suspect that Ikari has a different endgame planned for the conclusion of the war than they do," Fuyutski explained as he stood up.

"A different endgame," the woman repeated. "Not different ideas on how to run the war, or even different ideas on what to use the Evangelions for after it's over."

"That's right."

"Isn't everybody's goal to save the damn world by stopping the Angels?" she asked.

Despite his best efforts, Fuyutski smirked a little. "You don't know very much about what's really going on, do you?" he asked.

Before she could retort, the sound of rushing footsteps could be heard in the halls outside.

"Damn," she hissed, grabbing her gun and reloading it with quick, practiced motions. "Come on, Fuyutski, it's time to go."

* * *

It had taken Gendo several minutes to reach his office after his encounter with Rei. As the Commander of NERV, he often found people coming to him with questions on how to proceed with one issue or another, and that seemed to happen with an extremely annoying frequency as he made his way to the one place in headquarters where he felt completely safe.

Finally, however, he made it back to his office. After locking the door behind him, he wasted no time in pulling off his glove, revealing the yellow power ring he still wore.

As he'd suspected, it once again glowed with a golden light, much like it had when it had first flown through his window and placed itself upon his finger.

"You have power again?" he asked.

"_Affirmative_," it answered him. _"Power levels at 0.01 percent."_

Hardly a full charge, but that was certainly more than he'd had before.

"How?" he asked.

_"It is possible to marginally charge this ring by invoking fear in others, or experiencing and understand it within yourself,"_ it answered. _"However, to obtain a full charge, the power battery is required. Do you wish this ring to resume guiding you to its location?"_

Having already tried that once with less than stellar results, Gendo wasn't keen on the notion of using the ring as a GPS again.

"Give me the coordinates of its location," he said instead.

Glowing golden numbers immediately appeared in the empty air above his ring, and Gendo retrieved a pad and paper, quickly copying them down.

He could go immediately, he mused. There was nothing of extreme importance that needed his attention that day, and once he had the yellow power battery, his options for dealing with both Green Lantern and SEELE multiply tenfold.

The phone on his desk rang. Scowling, Gendo picked it up.

"Ikari here," he growled.

"Ikari, it's me," Fuyutski replied. "I've been liberated."

"Obviously," Gendo replied, expertly hiding his surprise.

He hadn't sent anyone to rescue Fuyutski; SEELE had infiltrated NERV thoroughly enough that he couldn't do it without the old men knowing, and he couldn't openly act against them without igniting a powder keg. He could've told Chiron to relax his watch on Kaji, but after Section Two had kept such a close eye on their new Operations Director for so long, that would've been just as blatant a move as sending one of his own agents.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"On my way to headquarters," Fuyutski answered. "I'll be there in less than a half an hour."

"Understood," Gendo replied, hanging up the phone.

He probably should've been glad that the closest thing he had in the world to a friend had escaped confinement and was on his way back. However, all Gendo felt was annoyance at the fact that he now had to wait a bit longer before retrieving the power battery. Questioning Fuyutski about what he'd endured, learning what he might have revealed to SEELE, and planning what to do next were not activities that could wait.

He looked at the set of the coordinates he'd written down. A quick check confirmed that they were in the mountains outside the city, the middle of nowhere. The battery would surely still be there in a few hours.

"Soon," he promised himself, slipping the precious piece of paper into his pocket. "Soon."

* * *

Misato was not exactly feeling joyful and triumphant when she returned to her apartment that afternoon; though she had rescued Fuyutski, she had gotten more questions than answers from the entire excursion.

_What on Earth could the Commander and the Committee be planning to do at the end of the war?_ She wondered. _What is there __**to**__ do?_

She wasn't naïve enough to think that once the threat of the Angels had passed, the world powers would happily decommission EVA technology and never touch it again. However, Fuyutski had made it quite clear that he was taking about something besides a post-war scramble to control the technology NERV had had to develop to counter the Angels.

As if she didn't have enough to worry about with those damned monsters, the humans apparently planned on making trouble, too.

It didn't help her attitude that Kaji had clearly already known everything she'd told him when she'd recapped what Fuyutski had told her for him.

_Feels like everyone knows more about what's going on than me sometimes,_ she thought irritably.

"I'm home," she called grumpily as she entered the apartment.

"Welcome home," Shinji replied, his voice barely higher than a whisper.

The subject of the shadow war that the Commander and the Committee were apparently waging abruptly left her mind for the moment as she took a look at her charge. Though pots were simmering on the stove, whatever he was cooking apparently didn't require much attention, because he was seated at the kitchen table, doing homework.

This by itself was hardly cause for concern, of course. What did get her worried was the almost palpable aura of gloom around him. He had been…subdued ever since the last Angel, as had Asuka, but she hadn't realized he was so down.

"Shinji, are you okay?" she asked, sliding off her shoes and then plopping down in the chair next to his.

"I'm fine, Misato," he said softly, not looking up from his book. "Why do you ask?"

"Mostly because of the dark cloud hanging over you," she said.

He grimaced, finally turning to look at her. "It's that obvious?" he asked.

Misato nodded. "Yeah, it is," she said. "So, spill. What's wrong? I thought that Green Lantern stopped that Angel before it could get into your mind."

"She did," Shinji said, "but it was a close thing, and it was so damn scary to have something trying to get into my head like that. I mean, you tend to think of your mind as a safe place."

Misato nodded. After her battle with Tokita, she could certainly appreciate the visceral horror that came with being on the receiving end of a telepathic assault.

"So you've been so down because the last battle left you shaken?" Misato asked dubiously, thinking that Shinji should've been getting better rather than worse if that was the case.

"No," he confessed softly.

"Then what's bothering you?" she asked gently. "Please tell me, Shinji."

"You know how each new Angel is usually stronger and more dangerous than the one that came before it?" he asked. "I can't stop worrying that the next one will have an attack like that, only this one will be more powerful. I don't know how I'll be able to pilot next time."

Wordlessly, Misato wrapped her arms around him, embracing him gently. She sighed softly, "You don't know how much I wish I could tell you don't have to pilot ever again, or at least promise you that none of the other Angels will attack your minds like the Fifteenth did," she said.

"It…it's okay, Misato," he said rather awkwardly. "I know you can't do those things, and I didn't expect you to have some magic solution to this…issue." He chuckled weakly. "I mean, how could you explain to me how I'm supposed to get over this? It's not like you've ever had this problem. You're not afraid of anything."

A bitter smile appeared on her face. "That's where you're wrong, Shinji," she said. "I've been afraid of lots of stuff in the past. Still am, in fact. I know what it's like to deal with fear."

He looked up at her, his dark blue eyes cautiously hopeful. "How do you do it?"

She sighed. "It's not easy, and it never gets easy," she admitted. "But I let my fears control me too much in the past, and the consequences were always bad. Sometimes really, really bad. It helps me to remember that no matter how scary something might seem, things always turn out worse when I don't overcome my fears. Plus I try to remember what I'm doing it all for. That helps, too." She added, smiling slightly.

"It's that simple, huh?" Shinji asked.

"Yeah, it really is," Misato nodded. "Unfortunately, just because it's simple doesn't mean it's not difficult as hell."

"Very true," Shinji agreed with a small, rueful smile.

"So, feeling better?" she asked.

"A little," he said. "You know, Asuka was really freaked out, too. I don't know if she's worried about the next Angel, too, but it wouldn't surprise me."

"I'll have a talk with her, too," Misato promised.

That was one conversation she definitely wasn't looking forward to; it would be quite the challenge just getting Asuka to admit that the Fifteenth Angel had had any significant effect on her. Honestly, sometimes she thought that the redhead's greatest fear was admitting she had fears.

Before she could contemplate the thought further, her cell phone went off. Wondering who could be calling, she reached into her pocket for it. However, before she could even touch the phone, Shinji's went off as well, and she knew that it was NERV on the other end of the line.

It looked like Shinji and Asuka would have to confront their fears sooner than they might have expected.

* * *

"What's the status of the city?" Kaji asked from the second tier of the command center.

"Transformation into wartime configuration is complete," Maya reported. "Over ninety percent of the civilian population is in the shelters. The rest should arrive there in under two minutes."

"The pilots have just reached their Evangelions," Makoto added. "We can launch whenever you give the word."

Kaji did his best to keep a scowl off his face. He really detested being the Ops Director, he mused as he scanned the command center for Misato. Unfortunately, after getting Shinji and Asuka to base, she seemed to have disappeared.

He knew that she'd been shaken by her own actions at Mount Asuma, but she really needed to get over it, at least enough to show up and help him at times like these.

"What's the status of the Angel?" he asked. "Have the MAGI been able to determine anything useful about it yet?"

"Negative, sir. The MAGI are still analyzing what data we've been able to collect, but they've been unable to reach any conclusions about it yet," Makoto said. "And it's still holding position above the city."

Kaji nodded, silently looking at the main screen, where an image of the Sixteenth Angel was displayed. This one had taken the form of a massive, glowing double helix that formed a great ring in the sky.

The long haired man decided that he hated it already. Experience had shown that it was the stranger Angels that NERV really needed to watch out for.

"Director Kaji, have you forgotten that we're in the business of killing the Angels?" Fuyutski asked testily from his place alongside Gendo on the command center's top tier.

"No, sir," Kaji said, wondering if whatever SEELE had done to him had made the old professor grumpy. "Status of civilian evacuation?" he asked Makoto.

"The entire populace has made it to the bunkers," the bespectacled man answered.

"Then launch the Evangelions," he said quietly.

Instantly, the electromagnetic lifts in headquarters fired, sending the trio of giant war machines hurtling up toward the surface.

"Shinji, Asuka, Rei, this is Kaji," he said, pushing a button to open a communications link. "Unfortunately, we need to send you up blind again, so proceed with caution, and be ready to help each other."

"Roger," they all replied in unison, Shinji and Asuka sounding a little too shaky for his liking.

_Damn, if only this one hadn't shown up so soon after the last one,_ he thought.

The three Evangelions reached the surface, heads snapping up with the force of inertia as their rapid ascent came to an abrupt halt. The manacles holding their feet to the lifts opened, and the air shimmered around them as the pilots willed their AT fields to life.

The Angel responded instantly to the presence of the invisible barriers. Its endless spinning over the city came to an abrupt halt, and the double helixes composing its body came together, transforming it into one glowing blue whole. A break appeared in its body, changing it from a ring into a luminous rope.

A deep hush fell over both the command center and Tokyo-3 itself for just a moment then, as the Evangelions and the Angel seemed to size one another up.

Then Unit Zero charged forward, its pallet rifle blazing with gunfire.

The Angel lashed out at the blue EVA with all the speed and ferocity of a viper, ignoring the massive shells which bounced harmlessly off its body. Unit Zero tried to dodge, but next to the Angel, the EVA was clumsy and slow.

The glowing blue rope plunged into Unit Zero's torso like some kind of particularly vicious parasite attempting to burrow into its host's body, ignoring the Evangelion's tough armor like it wasn't even there. The sound of Rei screaming could be heard throughout the command center, and red warning messages started to flash all over the smaller screens.

"Severe damage to Unit Zero!" Aoba reported. "Mental contamination is imminent!"

"Rei!" Gendo shouted in alarm. "Rei, are you all right?"

"It is…invading me," Rei answered, her voice tight with pain.

Unnoticed by everyone in the command center, the other two EVA pilots' eyes widened with horror.

"Shinji! Asuka! Get in there and help Rei!" Kaji ordered.

Units One and Two didn't move.

"Shinji? Asuka?" Kaji asked.

Communications windows popped up on the main screen, showing the two pilots, and the new Ops Director couldn't help but wince. Both Shinji and Asuka looked frozen with terror.

Kaji felt almost paralyzed himself at seeing that. Though he had dealt with Asuka for some time, helping her conquer her fears was something he had never really had to do before. He had no idea how to help a pair of terrified and traumatized teenagers snap out of such a state, least of all in the space of a mere few seconds.

"Sir, radar has picked up a bogey coming in from the south," Aoba spoke up.

"Do we have any idea what it is?" Kaji asked.

"It's tiny, too tiny for any known airplane," Aoba said. "I think…yes, it's the Green Lantern."

Kaji did his best not to let the Commanders see just how relieved he was.

As he watched the screen, she streaked forward, looking like a tiny emerald comet traveling across the sky. Once she was near enough to the Angel, she released a volley of jade blasts from her ring, all of which struck the glowing thing without fail, drawing blood in several places.

Despite having no mouth, the Angel shrieked in pain and rage, an awful, inhuman sound that sent chills down the spine of everyone listening. However, the glowing blue rope pulled away from Unit Zero, which had no doubt been Green Lantern's intent. Kaji grimaced when he saw the azure Evangelion; most of the armor on its torso was just gone, and there was a bleeding wound on its front. He wasn't the least bit surprised when it slumped forward and then went still.

"Status of Pilot Ayanami?" he asked.

"She's unconscious but alive, and her vitals are stable," Maya reported. "Synchronization level is zero. Unit Zero has deactivated."

Kaji nodded in acknowledgement as he watched the Angel chase Green Lantern through the sky. Despite how minute a target the jade superwoman was, the Angel was coming dangerously close to striking her, the damn thing was so fast and agile.

Then, a beam of emerald light burst from her ring, quickly forming what looked like—of all things—a giant dog collar, which quickly clamped down around the Angel near one end of the glowing rope. Impossible though it might have seemed, the Green Lantern's construct managed to stop the Angel's advance toward her. It thrashed wildly, almost resembling a bucking bronco, but despite how desperately it tried, it couldn't close the distance between itself and Green Lantern.

Kaji was just starting to feel cautiously hopeful when the Angel got smart.

Rather than trying to force the firmly bound portion of its body closer to Green Lantern, it instead lashed out with its other, free end.

The tactic apparently caught Green Lantern by surprise, because she _just_ failed to move out of the way in time. However, instead of striking her and sending her slamming into the ground as Kaji had expected the Angel to do, it struck her…and then seemed to swallow her whole. Green Lantern practically vanished right before his very eyes.

A very tense pause fell over the command center.

"Did…did it just…?" Kaji began.

Then, as if in answer to his question, the Sixteenth Angel's blue form abruptly turned jade green, and it glowed more brightly than ever.

Kaji's jaw set. It looked like Shinji and Asuka had an even more difficult challenge ahead of him than he'd thought.

* * *

Seated in his entry plug, Shinji Ikari could barely breathe. In fact, he wasn't quite sure he was breathing at all; perhaps the LCL oxygenating his blood directly was the only reason he hadn't passed out yet.

The moment he'd heard say that the Angel was "invading" her, his heart had started hammering in his chest. His worst fear, another Angel with the same terrible power as the Fifteenth, had come to pass.

When Green Lantern had swooped in, he had breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that she would take care of this Angel like she'd had taken care of the last one. He knew his father wouldn't like it if the emerald superwoman was able to add another Angel kill to her tally, but at the moment, he couldn't care less.

Then the Angel had absorbed her, and suddenly he and Asuka were the only ones available to stand up to the beast.

_God, I don't want to do this,_ he thought miserably, already at the edge of hysteria. _I'm not even sure I __**can**__ do this…_

He was dimly aware of Kaji ordering him and Asuka to engage the Angel, but the new Ops Director's voice seemed like a very distant thing to him right then. As Shinji watched, the now green Angel curled itself back into a circle, though it did not revert to its double helix form. Then, emerald light radiated forth from the Angel's body, like some kind of luminous cloud, quickly forming into a shape that Shinji remembered only too well.

Sachiel, the Third Angel, stood there, dressed in green. The Sixteenth Angel, the real one, was inside the construct it had created.

As Shinji watched, the emerald Angel slowly advanced toward the motionless form of Unit Zero. It opened its great, claw-like hand, and the Third Child could easily see the sphere embedded in its palm. Unconsciously, he raised his hand to his eye; he could recall all too vividly what it was like to be on the receiving end of an energy blast from the Third Angel.

He swallowed, remembering what Misato had told him not an hour ago, about how things always turned out worse when you didn't stand up to your fears. She'd made it sound so straightforward.

The faux Third Angel grabbed Unit Zero's head and pulled it up, so its feet dangled helplessly above the ground. Shinji felt a very unpleasant wave of déjà vu wash over him as he saw it.

_I have to do something,_ he thought frantically, and yet both his body and that of Unit One still refused to move. It was like someone had replaced his Evangelion's legs with pillars of cement. _I can't just stand here, and let Rei go through that, and Green Lantern…_

His eyes widened. Shinji had been so lost in his own terror that he had momentarily forgotten about his suspicions regarding the emerald superwoman's true identity. If he lost both Rei _and_ Misato because he was too cowardly to act, he'd never forgive himself.

Almost without realizing what he was doing, Shinji sent Unit One charging forward. Ignoring the rifle that was clutched in the war machine's right hand, he lashed out with Unit One's left fist, striking the faux version of the Third Angel right in its bony face. The emerald Angel dropped Unit Zero, which fell limply back to the ground, and went staggering back, its form losing cohesion, reverting to nothing more than a green cloud.

Shinji hoped that the construct would fade entirely, allowing him to focus on the real Angel inside. He had no idea how he might get Green Lantern out, but he felt he had to try; Misato would want him to at least make the attempt, and he was growing increasingly sure that Green Lantern and Misato were in fact the same person.

Unfortunately, as usual, the Third Child found his hopes dashed. Rather than fade away, the green light swirling around the real Angel soon reformed, taking on not the shape of the Third Angel, but of the Sixth.

"Crap," Shinji hissed.

If it was going to cycle through the previous Angels, he would've preferred that it go in order. That way, at least he'd know what was coming next.

The green Sixth Angel soared upwards, moving like it was swimming in the dark seas rather than blue sky. For just a moment, Shinji was struck by how graceful it was despite it great size, something he hadn't exactly been in a position to admire when he and Asuka had fought the real version of the beast.

Then the Angel plunged downwards at blistering speed, its jaws open and its multiple rows of razor-sharp on full display. Shinji reacted on instinct, raising his pallet rifle and firing off a long burst. Several of the massive slugs impacted against the core in the faux Angel's throat, which just happened to be where the _real_ Angel was hiding.

Immediately, the emerald copy of the Sixth Angel released a whale-like bellow of pain and anger, veering sharply off course as it blurred around the edges. The thing crashed into the city well to Unit One's right with stupendous force, shattering nearly an entire city block and creating an enormous cloud of dust and debris.

Shinji pointed his rifle at that cloud and waited with baited breath to see what came out.

He cursed when it was a green version of the Fifth Angel, even though it was much smaller than the real one had been.

It entire body pulsed, and Shinji sent Unit One diving out of the way as the blast of emerald light erupted from one of the points and went streaking straight toward him. It was a good thing, too, because the building behind Unit One was all but vaporized by the force of the blast.

_This is insane,_ he thought. _I can't let it go through all the Angels. I have to try and stop this now._

Unit One broke from cover just long enough to empty his pallet rifle's already depleted clip into the emerald copy of the Fifth Angel, which cracked in multiple places from the force of the slugs. Almost immediately, its form started to waver.

_Now!_ He thought, sending Unit One sprinting toward the green light, intending to rip the real Angel out of is protective cocoon and hopefully end the battle once and for all.

He almost made it, too. Almost.

Just before he could reach it, the green light took shape again, becoming a nearly perfect (if color-shifted) duplicate of the Fifteenth Angel. Unit One came to an abrupt halt before it as the human at the center of the war machine felt his stomach plunge into his shoes.

"No," Shinji breathed, suddenly forgetting about what he planned to do in the face of those shining emerald wings.

He told himself to move, told himself to run, but he found he couldn't do anything. Once again, he was paralyzed by fear.

The Angel's body glowed, and Shinji knew it was about to unleash its telepathic attack. Cringing, he raised his hands in front of his face, as though that would help anything.

Then, the sound of gunfire roared through the air, a nearly solid stream of massive metal shells striking the faux Angel, which quickly became a shapeless thing again. Blinking, Shinji turned to see Unit Two standing behind him, smoke rising from the barrel of its pallet rifle.

"What are you waiting for?" Asuka barked at him. "Move it!"

This was a little much coming from someone who had just stood there while he'd fought the Angel for several minutes, but Shinji was so grateful to her for what she'd just done that he wasn't about to point that out. He sent Unit One rushing forward and reached into the green light, grabbing hold of the Angel. It felt like gasping onto white hot razor wire, and his jaw clenched as he suppressed a cry of agony. He could do this, he told himself. It wasn't any worse than grabbing the Fourth Angel's energy whips.

With a grunt of effort, he pulled the Angel out of its incoherent energy construct, hurling it onto the ground where it thrashed about on the ground like some kind of gigantic, panicked snake, causing massive amounts of damage to the surrounding buildings as it did.

Shinji didn't give it a chance to reorient itself. With a mental command, he opened the compartment where Unit One's progressive knife was kept. He stabbed the body of the Angel, silently praying that he didn't hurt Green Lantern. His efforts were rewarded with a veritable geyser of blood, along with another shriek from the Angel.

Before Shinji could strike again, Green Lantern exploded out of the Angel's body, at the center of a sphere made of emerald light. She left a significant hole in the thing as she exited, and the Angel almost immediately became blue again without her and her power ring inside it any longer.

No longer having to fear that he would kill the superwoman, Shinji was about to redouble his attack, but he never got the chance. A green battle axe so massive that even an Evangelion couldn't have used it comfortably materialized in the air above Green Lantern, then swung itself down at the Angel, neatly cleaving it in two. The beast released one more truly ear piercing shriek of pain, then it went still and silent. Its body ceased to glow and started to shrivel up right before Shinji's eyes, making it look like a giant earthworm that had gotten stranded on the sidewalk on a sunny day.

He turned to look at Green Lantern, but the jade superwoman was already streaking away at speeds even an Evangelion couldn't hope to match.

* * *

Gendo Ikari had had a long day, to put it mildly.

In addition to debriefing Fuyutski on his impromptu absence from NERV, he had then had to deal with the Angel battle and its aftermath.

The whole battle had been something of a wash for NERV so far as Green Lantern was concerned; though she had ultimately struck the killing blow, there was no arguing that things would not have ended well for her without the presence of the Evangelions.

However, the old men could complain about any battle, so long as NERV didn't manage a flawless victory in which absolutely no damage to city or the Evangelions was done. Therefore, he had been forced to go before the Committee and endure their petty complaints, in addition to all the other bureaucratic nonsense he was forced to deal with following every Angel conflict.

All this while filled with anticipation over what awaited him in the mountains outside Tokyo-3.

It had felt like an eternity before he had finished with his duties for the day, but finish he finally had. Dismissing his security detail, Gendo had claimed a vehicle with all wheel drive from NERV's private fleet of cars, then he'd driven out into the night, getting as close to the coordinates his ring had given him as possible. Then he had gotten out and began to slowly pick his way across the rocky terrain.

It would have been easier, of course, to send someone to retrieve the battery for him, but in this, Gendo felt he could trust no one else.

Eventually, he reached the indicated coordinates, only to find no power battery waiting for him. Instead, he discovered what looked very much like the remains of a rock slide.

He scowled darkly as he surveyed the area, now suspecting that the precious object he sought was buried beneath tons and tons of earth. He almost decided to turn back to see about getting the necessary equipment and crews to move the great pile of rocks, but then the beam from his flashlight stopped on something that most certainly was not a boulder.

Upon closer inspection, he discovered that it was a withered arm sticking out of the rocks.

Gendo rushed over to it as fast as he dared and started moving the rocks around it, soon exposing the rest of the mangled, half mummified body it was attached to. The color of the skin had faded somewhat since death, but it was still a deeper red than any human possessed.

Clutched in the thing's other hand was the object Gendo Ikari sought, the power battery. It looked like an old train lantern made out of solid gold.

Many a man would have been rather disturbed at seeing their predecessor like this. Gendo never gave that a thought as he grabbed hold of the battery. Quickly, he peeled off his glove to reveal the power ring there, then held the battery near his hand.

"In blackest day, in brightest night," he began as golden flames appeared around him, lapping painlessly at his clothes, "beware your fears made into light. Let those who try to stop what's right, _burn like my power…__**Sinestro's might!**_" he shouted.

Golden light flared around him, transforming his current attire into the black and gold uniform of the Sinestro Corps. Gendo's feet rose slightly off the ground as a halo of yellow light appeared around him.

_"Power levels 100 percent,_" his ring hissed.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** And the Sixteenth Angel has come and gone. We're really getting close to the end now.

Thanks as always to my readers and reviewers.


	15. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen:** Eleventh Hour Discoveries

It was the middle of the night in Tokyo-3. The stars twinkled in a cloudless sky, while the moon bathed the city in its cool, silvery light. No Angels plagued the fortress of humanity that night, nor did any other fantastical threats make themselves known. Overall, Tokyo-3 was the very portrait of peace.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said about Misato Katsuragi's bedroom, where the lady of the apartment was tossing and turning almost violently in her sleep. Her pretty face was twisted into a grimace, and small pitiful moans were escaping through her clenched teeth.

Finally, with a loud gasp and a burst of explosive motion, she sat bolt upright, her brown eyes popping wide open.

For several long moments, she just sat there panting, her chest heaving.

"God damn it," she breathed softly to herself as her breathing gradually slowed. She leaned backwards a bit, propping herself up with an arm.

Her pajamas, which that night consisted of a tank top and a pair of panties, were completely soaked with sweat, and the temperature inside her room felt like it was few degrees shy of the melting point of lead. Getting up, Misato staggered over to the window, nearly tripping over several piles of dirty laundry and other junk several times as she went. With a heave, she pushed the window open.

The air outside her room was cooler than the air inside it but not by nearly as much as she had hoped.

She wanted a beer. Desperately. She could picture it so clearly in her mind's eye: the amber liquid shining like gold in a frosted mug, cold and delicious as it ran down her throat. If she'd still had any in apartment, she doubtlessly would've gone and helped herself to a bottle. If she didn't know all too well what happened when she tried to drown nightmares in alcohol, she would've seriously been considering a run to the liquor store, the late hour be damned.

As it was, she just stood in front of her bedroom window for several seconds, feeling frustrated and dressed in sweaty pajamas.

Getting absorbed by the Sixteenth Angel had not been as terrible as the mind games the Twelfth had put her through, but it still hadn't been pleasant. It had felt as though the Angel had run tendrils straight into her brain, connecting her to it. She had been aware of everything it had been using her power to do, but she hadn't been able to break free until the Evangelions had done some damage to the Angel, no matter how fiercely she fought it.

So, naturally, now she was having nightmares about _not_ managing to escape it, where the Angel used the power of her ring to destroy the Evangelions and kill the Children.

_I should go back to bed,_ she thought eventually, looking at her futon.

Unfortunately, she not only still felt wide awake, but she still felt incredibly hot, as well. She couldn't even imagine going back to sleep right now, not until she managed to cool down a bit, anyway.

Water. A glass of cold water might do the trick, even though it wouldn't taste nearly as good as a beer would.

She walked over to her bedroom door, then hesitated, wondering if she should put on some more clothing before she left the privacy of her bedroom. Then she shrugged and walked out. Feeling too hot was the whole problem, and adding more layers usually didn't help with that. Besides, Shinji and Asuka were probably sound asleep. Even if they weren't, it wouldn't be the first time they'd seen her in less clothing than could strictly be considered appropriate.

She trod over to the kitchen, finding it dark. Thanks to Shinji, there was no garbage to trip over in this part of the apartment, so she easily navigated it without light, getting a glass from the cupboard. Then she opened the fridge to get the pitcher of water inside.

Light streamed through the kitchen as the bulb inside the refrigerator automatically came on, illuminating the redhead sitting at the table. Startled by the realization that Asuka was right there, Misato barely managed to hold back a shout of surprise.

"What were you doing, sitting around in the dark?" the purple haired woman hissed.

"Having a drink," Asuka replied, holding up a can of fruit juice.

"But why didn't you turn on the lights?" Misato demanded as she did just that.

The redhead shrugged. "There didn't seem to be a reason to. I have good night vision."

If that was true, then Asuka was reacting remarkably well to having the lights turned on, Misato noted. She wasn't squinting or shielding her eyes at all.

Eventually, Misato gave a mental shrug, deciding that the redhead's eyes must've adjusted to the light a bit when she'd opened the fridge, or something.

"You know," Asuka said as Misato finally got around to pouring herself a glass of water, "if that top was white instead of black, it'd be transparent right now, you're so damn sweaty."

"It's hot out tonight," Misato said with a shrug as she took a long drink.

"Is that why you're prancing around half naked?" Asuka asked. "Or are you hoping the baka will catch a glimpse of you and finally start puberty?"

Despite herself, Misato couldn't help but smirk a little bit at that. "Well, I _have_ made a few voices deepen early, in my day, and besides, a young man should know what a woman looks like," she said, thrusting her ample chest forward.

Not for the first time, she noted with pleasure just how firm and perky she was looking lately. Using her ring to remove an entire decade's worth of wear and tear from her body might've been an accident, but damn if she wasn't glad she'd done it.

"Of course, given how many glances Shinji steals, I think it's safe to say I don't need to invoke puberty in him," Misato said, cupping her significant bust and hefting it for emphasis.

Asuka rolled her eyes, looking exasperated and perhaps just a little envious. "Okay, sorry I asked. Now would you quit that? The pervert would enjoy this show, but I don't."

"Of course not," Misato said with just enough sarcasm to make the redhead roll her eyes again. "So, what are you doing up at this hour?" she asked, sitting down at the table next to Asuka.

"Couldn't sleep," Asuka replied just a bit too nonchalantly. "You?"

"Same here," Misato replied. "Needed to try and cool down a little before going back to bed."

The Second Child made a small grunt by way of reply to that, and for a while the two young women lapsed into silence, quietly sipping their drinks.

Eventually, though, Misato ventured a remark. "So…Shinji told me the other day how terrifying it was when the Fifteenth Angel attacked his mind," she said.

Even before the redhead opened her mouth, Misato knew she'd touched a nerve. Asuka's head jerked away from her can of juice to face her guardian, and her sky blue eyes flashed. "You think I'm as easily scared as the baka?" she demanded.

_And this,_ Misato thought, _is why it's so much more difficult to talk with Asuka than with Shinji._

If she wanted to discuss a subject like this and the Third Child didn't, he would attempt to pretend that everything was all right, but he'd do a very poor job of it. All she really had to do was push a little bit, and he'd admit he was being evasive and start talking.

Asuka, on the other hand, was prickly. Misato knew she'd have to choose her next words carefully, or she wouldn't get anything out of the redhead.

"I think," she said, "that going through that would leave anybody shaken, and it must've taken a lot of courage to attack the last Angel when it took the shape of the Fifteenth."

Asuka blinked at this, and Misato could almost see the gears in the redhead's mind turning as she tried to decide if the compliment to her bravery adequately made up for the implication that she'd been just as rattled by the Fifteenth Angel's attack as Shinji had been.

"You know, Asuka, I'm always here if there's anything you want to talk about, even if it's just to get it off your chest," Misato said.

The redhead sighed and mumbled something, too softly for the older woman to pick up on.

"What?"

"I said I've been having nightmares about the Fifteenth Angel," Asuka said, with more than a trace of anger in her voice.

Misato nodded, having expected that answer. "It's the burden soldiers have to bear," she said quietly. "We take the risks, and then, if we survive, endure the nightmares, so the civilians can live and be safe. So society can continue."

Asuka gave her a funny look in response to that.

"What?" Misato asked eventually.

The redhead shrugged. "I…don't think you ever spoke to me like that before," she said. Then, obviously seeing the older woman's confusion, she added, "Like an equal, I mean, or a comrade-in-arms."

"Oh," Misato said with a tiny, rueful smile. "Well, you've seen enough action for me to consider you a fellow soldier, even if you've had the most unusual tour of duty in the history of war. And you've grown up a lot recently, too."

That last part was truer than she'd really noticed until now, she realized. While Asuka was still somewhat hot tempered, and her rough edges definitely hadn't been entirely smoothed out, there was no denying that the redhead was a good deal more reasonable and responsible than she had been upon arriving to Tokyo-3.

Misato would've liked to think that was because of her, but between being the Ops Director and being the Green Lantern, she hadn't found very much time to spare for Asuka, she mused guiltily.

"Thanks," the redhead said.

Misato shrugged. "Just calling it as I see it."

They lapsed back into silence after that, and for a few minutes they just sat there, quietly sipping their drinks. Eventually, Misato finished her glass of water. Her body temperature seemed to have backed away from that of molten lava, she noted.

"C'mon," she said, getting up and putting her glass in the sink. "Nightmares or not, we still need sleep."

Asuka grumbled something that Misato didn't quite catch, but she threw her now empty can away and made to follow her guardian back to the part of the apartment that had their bedrooms.

"Oh, by the way," Misato said just before they parted ways. "Take it from a woman who's made mistakes. If you ever feel the urge to try drinking yourself to sleep when you have nightmares, don't. It really seems like it should work great, but it doesn't."

Asuka rolled her eyes. "Like I would ever try that," she grumbled, just before disappearing into her room.

_As irreverent as ever,_ Misato thought, shaking her head with a little, rueful smile.

Of course, there had been a time when she herself would've scoffed at the notion that she'd ever have problems with alcohol, too. Misato just hoped that Asuka turned out to be right in her certainty that she would never sink to that, or, failing that, that she was around to help her with her problems.

* * *

The Evangelion graveyard was usually one of the darkest places in Terminal Dogma. There was no need for light there; it was a dumping ground for the useless remains of failed attempts at creating giants. Any knowledge that NERV could've gleaned from them had either already been acquired or abandoned as unimportant and not worth the effort.

That day, however, light chased even the darkest shadows out of the usually dim room. Golden light.

Gendo Ikari hovered well above the floor of the massive chamber, clad in the uniform of the Sinestro Corps, a yellow halo blazing around him. He concentrated, and a beam of light streamed forth from the ring on his finger, quickly taking the shape of a massive hand. The ring construct reached down, grabbing the head of a dusty old Evangelion body…and easily crushed both armor and bone in its grip.

The Commander of NERV nodded slightly with satisfaction. His new power ring was nothing short of incredible. Indeed, if Green Lantern's ring could equal his own in terms of raw firepower, then it was no wonder she had managed to steal NERV's thunder so often. In fact, it was rather surprising she'd had as much difficulty with the Angel as she had.

_The Old Men are in for a very unpleasant surprise, should they attempt anything in the closing days of the Scenario,_ Gendo mused.

As a consummate schemer, Gendo Ikari had no intention of scrapping all his current plans for more direct actions with his new power ring. If he had possessed it before, he doubtlessly would have worked its capabilities into his plans. With the completion of the Scenario so close at hand, however, he would be perfectly happy to allow his original plans to unfold, assuming that they did so without any undue complications. He never had been the type to act directly, preferring to use others to accomplish his goals, and gaining the yellow ring had not changed that.

However, it was good to know he now had insurance against even a catastrophic occurrence. If Keel, Green Lantern, or any of the city's other superwoman tried to interfere with his plans, they would pay. Dearly.

With that thought in mind, the Commander released several energy blasts from his ring, firing down another dead Evangelion prototype, turning it into Swiss cheese.

A tiny smirk appeared on his face. Even with no AT field to protect it, an EVA's armor was extremely tough, but it wasn't nearly durable enough to withstand his new power.

"I appear to have mastered constructs and energy blasts," he remarked.

_"This ring still has other functions,"_ the band of golden metal on his gloved finger hissed. _"These include timed commands, inter-universal travel, and the ability to instill fear in a target."_

Gendo's eyebrows rose with interest as he heard the last one, but it would have to wait. The elevator nearby released a chime, indicating that someone else was venturing down into NERV's restricted sub-basement.

The Commander quickly descended, his feet returning to the floor. Then his yellow and black uniform seemed to become more golden light, which was pulled into the ring he wore, leaving his NERV uniform behind. By the time the elevator doors slid open, there was no sign whatsoever that he now possessed a ring of power very similar and yet very different from Green Lantern's.

"Commander," Ritsuko greeted him as she stepped out of the elevator.

"Dr. Akagi," he replied curtly, annoyed at the interruption.

The bottle blonde hesitated for a moment, taken aback. Even in the safety and privacy of Terminal Dogma, he didn't tend to be any warmer to her than he was in the more public parts of the base, but he also usually wasn't _colder_, either.

"Ah, there's been some news," she said, eventually regaining her composure. "The Marduke Institute has just announced that they're sending us a new pilot." She handed him a manila folder.

Gendo opened it, ignoring the written dossier to look at the picture of the soon-to-be Fifth Child. The boy had ash gray hair and eyes as red as Rei's. Clearly, SEELE wasn't even trying to conceal what they were doing.

"Very well," he said. "It is, after all, not NERV's place to question the selections of the Maruke Institute."

Ritsuko raised an eyebrow at that. While that was technically true, the Commanders could dismiss any pilot for any reason, and neither the Institute nor the Committee had any formal authority to stop them from doing just that. With the three pilots of their three Evangelions somehow still all alive and perfectly functional, Gendo could've made a solid argument against accepting the new boy.

Of course, that assumed he wanted to keep the would-be Fifth Child out.

"You…do know what he probably is, of course?" Ritsuko spoke up.

"Of course I do," he replied, irritated that she'd even felt the need to ask. "He must be dealt with before the Scenario can reach completion."

"I see," Ritsuko said. "Very well, then…is there anything else you require, sir?"

Gendo silently looked the bottle blonde up and down for a second, noting the way she was thrusting her chest out, not enough to be completely blatant about it, but more than enough for him to know she was making an offer.

For all she wanted to be different from her mother, Ritsuko was every bit as easy to manipulate as Naoko Akagi had been. If anything, she was even more needy than her mother.

"No," he replied bluntly. "I'm busy."

The bottle blonde responded by getting noticeably less subtle. With a faux casual movement, she pulled the zipper on the front of her shirt down a few centimeters, and lifted her chest a bit higher.

"You're certain?" she asked in a voice that was markedly less than professional.

"Yes," the Commander practically growled, that single word dripping with menace. "Get out."

Ritsuko paled. She would've sworn that his eyes had turned yellow behind his glasses for a second, but that was probably the least frightening thing about him in that moment.

"Of…of course," she stammered. "Excuse me."

With that, she all but ran back to the elevator.

Gendo watched her go without regret. Indulging another woman's desires, all in the name of getting his Yui back, had grown extremely tiresome over the years. With his plans nearing their conclusion, her assistance was not nearly as critical as it had once been; he could afford to snub her now, especially with his new power serving as a safeguard against any unforeseen complications.

"If I need her help, and if she tries to refuse me, she will know fear," Gendo said aloud as yellow light blazed around him once more.

* * *

Though not very well versed on popular culture, Shinji Ikari knew, of course, that giant robot shows were extremely numerous and popular in Japanese media. Yet so far as he was aware, none of them ever quite portrayed the pilots of the giant robots as being ordinary people when they weren't saving the world or whatever.

For instance, he'd yet to see a scene in a giant robot anime where one of the pilots spent time cleaning up their home, and Shinji himself did that regularly.

A lot of people out there would've said that such simple housekeeping tasks were beneath the pilot of a giant robot, but Shinji actually enjoyed cleaning. He found it to be very relaxing, not to mention wonderfully normal.

_Besides, until NERV pays me enough to hire a maid or something, it's either this or living in squalor,_ he mused.

"There," he said as he finished with the kitchen floor. "Now what's next…?"

Going through his mental checklist, the Third Child initially couldn't think of anything else that needed doing. The carpets had met the business end of a vacuum cleaner only recently, the windows were clean, and there were no dishes in the sink.

"Oh," he said suddenly, snapping his fingers. "I forgot about Misato's room."

He normally didn't bother with his guardian's room; with the way she seemed determined to keep it a pigsty, trying to clean it was definitely an uphill battle. Also, it had always seemed a tad intrusive to him, even though Misato had never seemed to care much if he poked around in her room.

Still, the place needed to be cleaned _occasionally_, at least, and Shinji figured that Misato's room was probably overdue.

He told himself that his sudden determination to tidy the place a bit had absolutely nothing to do with the suspicions he'd recently developed about what his guardian was doing with her spare time.

Gathering up a garbage bag and an empty laundry basket, Shinji ventured into the heart of messiness, making a face as he took in the piles of trash and dirty laundry that almost entirely obscured the carpet in the room.

"How can anyone live like this?" he wondered aloud, shaking his head.

He wasted no time getting to work, throwing empty beer cans and other rubbish into his garbage bag. Once he'd gotten rid of most of the rubbish, he moved the laundry, carelessly tossing most of it into the basket, but handling Misato's undergarments like they were live explosives.

Though even with his trepidation, he still couldn't help but take note of just how large the cups of the bras were…

"Well, at least it looks fit for human habitation again," he remarked to himself as he surveyed the room.

Normally when it came to cleanliness, Shinji was a bit of a perfectionist, but he'd long ago accepted that where Misato's room was concerned, "good enough" was, well, good enough. He was about to leave when he remembered one last thing.

"The closet," he muttered to himself. There was probably a ton of dirty laundry in there.

Opening it up, he soon discovered that there was indeed a great pile of rumpled clothes sitting on the floor inside. With a sigh and a small, rueful smile, he started to gather it all up.

_It's a wonder she ever has anything clean to wear, with the way she just leaves most of her wardrobe laying on the—_

A beam of green light escaped from the pile of clothing then, briefly bathing the interior of Misato's closet in emerald light. Shocked, Shinji released a small yelp and dropped the armload of clothes he was carrying, covering the source of the light and plunging the closet back into shadows.

"No way," he breathed. He hadn't seriously thought he'd find reason to believe that Misato was the Green Lantern while he was at this. In fact, he'd forgotten that the idea had ever crossed his mind several minutes ago.

With suddenly shaking hands, Shinji slowly started picking up clothes again, and soon the green light reappeared. It wasn't long before the Third Child had exposed what looked like an old fashioned train lantern made of a dark green metal.

"Incredible," he breathed, grabbing the handle and picking it up. An otherworldly emerald light glowed from within the lantern, but there was no flame or heat.

He might have stared at it for several minutes, but the sound of the front door opening interrupted his amazement.

"I'm home!" Misato called.

Eyes widening, Shinji quickly shoved the lantern as far back into the closet as he could and dumped a big pile of laundry on top of it, stifling its light completely. Then he jumped to his feet, shut the closet door, and bolted out of the room, somehow carrying both the garbage bag and the laundry basket at once.

All the while, one thought kept running through his brain, as though endlessly repeating it would make it easier to believe.

_Misato __**is**__ the Green Lantern!_

* * *

The next day, Misato was a woman on a mission.

Her mission to rescue Fuyutski from the grip of the Committee had technically been a success, but it had yielded very little of the information she had hoped to obtain. In fact, the only thing she'd really learned was just how deep her ignorance of what was happening behind the curtain truly was.

That wasn't acceptable, not when the EVA pilots were doubtlessly caught right smack in the center of whatever plans that the Commander and the Committee were hatching.

So, she went looking for Kaji, eventually finding the new Ops Director loitering by a bank of vending machines, drinking a can of coffee and looking exhausted. He didn't look up as she approached.

Misato felt a pang of guilt seeing him so obviously bone tired. After all, he wouldn't be stuck with her old job if she hadn't walked away from it.

She ruthlessly suppressed the feeling, however, reminding herself that she couldn't have done half as much good as Green Lantern if she'd kept the Ops Director post.

_Looks like he's lost his little shadow,_ she thought, noting that Chiron didn't appear to be hovering around. _Good._

"Hello, Kaji," she said.

He looked up at her, and he opened his mouth to say something. Before he could, however, she gave him a good shove, pushing him against the wall and then all but pressing herself against him.

To anyone watching the base's security feeds, it would look like they were about to start necking. However, Kaji, who could see the look in her brown eyes, clearly never made the mistake of thinking Misato had romance on her mind.

"Hello there, Katsuragi. Is there something you wanted?"

Of course, that didn't stop him from making a smart remark. He just wouldn't have been Kaji otherwise.

"As you probably noticed, Fuyutski's back," she said softly. "I got him out of the dark cell they had him in."

"And a very good job you did of it, too," Kaji replied. "I knew you could do it, of course. You've always been as lethal as you are beautiful."

"Cut the flattery," she said in a low voice. "I'm not stupid. I know that it was probably your job to go and bust him out, but you couldn't do it because Section Two's been watching you so closely since you got my old position. I did your dirty work for you."  
"Yes, so?" Kaji frowned. "Don't tell me you didn't figure that out before you did it."

"Of course I did," Misato scowled. "But the whole reason I did it was because I expected to learn something about what's really going on around here. I barely got anything out of Fuyutski, though. I didn't get much time to interrogate him."

"I didn't promise you a twenty minute interview with him," Kaji pointed out.

"True, but I want to know what the hell's really going on around here," she said. "And you're going to help me find out."

She didn't add the "or else", but she knew Kaji well enough to know he'd understand it was implied.

The long haired man's eyes flickered over to the security camera hanging from the ceiling, appraising what it could see and what it couldn't see. Then, he slowly reached into his pocket and withdrew a small white and red capsule.

"I think that this should help you find the information you want," he said, handing it to her. Misato could feel something small rattling around inside of it. "And god knows you'll have more opportunities to use it than I will. But be warned, you may be surprised by just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Don't come complaining to me if you don't like what you discover."

"I won't," she promised, slipping the capsule into her pocket. "And thanks."

* * *

"What a day," Shinji muttered to himself as he walked through the halls of NERV headquarters.

Ever since he had discovered the lantern in Misato's closet, he had been able to think of little else. He kept wondering if he should tell her that he knew she was Green Lantern. It might make it easier for her; she wouldn't need to hide it from him, and he could help her keep the secret from others. Also, he found that he very much liked the idea of being her confidant.

On the other hand, he was afraid she'd be angry at him for snooping. As much as he'd rationalized what he was doing at the time, in hindsight, there was no way to deny that he had gotten nosy and gone spying. The perpetually disastrous state of Misato's room had merely been his excuse, and he had little doubt that she'd immediately realize that.

Of course, dealing with a conundrum like that hadn't helped him at all during the math test he'd faced that day at school. He had a bad feeling that his grade in that subject was about to dip.

"Excuse me."

The soft voice instantly pulled the Third Child from his thoughts, and he looked up to see another boy his own age standing nearby.

"Um, hello," Shinji replied.

He wasn't sure what surprised him more: the presence of someone his age at NERV headquarters who wasn't Rei or Asuka, or that the boy had ash gray hair and red eyes just like the First Child.

The other boy smiled benignly. "My name is Kaworu Nagisa," he introduced himself. "I've recently been selected to serve as the Fifth Child. And you must be Shinji Ikari. I've heard a lot about you."

"You have?" Shinji asked, surprised.

"Oh, yes," Kaworu nodded, his smile widening. "Forgive me, but you seem rather ignorant of your position here at NERV."

The Third Child blinked, then chuckled. "I tend to be pretty ignorant of all the goings-on at NERV, actually," he said sheepishly.

_Hell, half the time Kensuke knows more about what's going on around here than I do,_ he added silently.

"Is that so?" the gray haired boy asked, looking quietly amused. "Have you at least learned your way around headquarters?"

"Oh yeah," Shinji said at once. "Or, at least, I know my way better than some people, anyway." He added modestly.

At least he didn't still get turned around occasionally, unlike Misato.

"Then do you think you can show me around the base?" Kaworu asked. "I'm afraid I find the layout of this place quite confusing."

"Sure, I can give you a tour, I guess," Shinji said with a shrug. He had some time, and maybe it would get his mind to stop going in circles like a dog chasing its tail as he tried to decide what to do with his new knowledge about Misato.

Shinji proceeded to take Kaworu around the base, showing him all the places in it that an EVA pilot should know how to get to, everything from the commissary to the test plugs to the cages. The newly minted Fifth Child spoke rarely, but Shinji considered him good company anyway; the silences between them were comfortable rather than awkward, and there was something oddly soothing about the red-eyed boy's presence that put the Third Child at ease.

"And that's pretty much all the important stuff," Shinji said as he concluded the impromptu tour. "There are offices and labs and stuff all over the place, but we usually don't have to go there. This place really isn't that much of a maze once you get used to the layout of it."

"I see," Kaworu said, his perpetual smile still very much in place. "Thank you for showing me around, Shinji Ikari."

"Oh, you can just call me Shinji," he said. "Say, it's almost lunch time. You want to head down to the cafeteria and get something to eat?"

"Unfortunately, I cannot," Kaworu replied. "I have some synch tests scheduled for less than an hour from now."

"Ah, too bad," Shinji said. "Well, it was nice meeting you. I guess I'll be seeing you around."

Kaworu nodded. "Until then."

"See you," Shinji said, and with a little wave he parted ways from the newest pilot, thinking that he would probably enjoy working with Kaworu.

For his own part, the Fifth Child silently stood and watched Shinji's retreating back until the Third Child turned a corner and disappeared from his view.

Only when he was alone did Kaworu's smile twist into a small frown. "He was not quite as I expected," the gray haired boy commented to himself before turning and heading off to his sync test.

* * *

"The Fifth Child?" Misato asked.

"That's right," Ritsuko replied with a sigh. "The Marduke Institute recently recruited him, and we put him through the initial testing today."

Ever since she had stepped down from the Operations Director post, Misato had found that she had quite a bit of spare time during her workday, even with Kaji dumping a significant portion of her former paperwork on her.

Assuming, of course, that no Angel or anything else that might demand Green Lantern's attention showed up.

She spent a lot of her new free time goofing off in her office, but that often got boring, so she'd seek out Ritsuko. Oftentimes the bottle blonde had neither the time nor patience for her. Sometimes she did. And sometimes, she'd share some interesting bit of news with Misato.

"I'm surprised they didn't feel the need to inform me," the purple haired woman remarked. "After all, a new pilot showing up is pretty important."

"Well, I'm sure they informed Kaji," Ritsuko muttered with a shrug, not looking away from her computer screen.

"So how'd he do on those tests, anyway?" Misato asked.

"Extremely well," Ritsuko answered distractedly. "His initial sync ratio was far higher than even Shinji's was."

Misato's eyes widened. "That's incredible."

"Yes," Ritsuko said. "However, given that the first three Children are still doing quite well, amazingly enough, and Pilot Nagisa's complete lack of combat experience, he'll likely be a backup pilot unless something changes."

The volume of her voice dropped steadily as she told her friend this, so much so that Misato had to strain her ears to hear the last few words.

She was just about to remark on that when Maya walked into the office, carrying a manila folder. "Hello, Sempai, I—"

"Ah!" Ritsuko seemed to jump a foot before landing back in her office chair.

The petite brunette cringed. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Sempai!" she exclaimed. "I didn't mean to startle you like that!"

"It's…all right," the scientist replied, though she looked badly flustered. "Thank you for bringing those documents I asked for." She accepted the folder from her assistant. "You can go for the evening." She added, shooing Maya away.

"Right. Sorry again about scaring you," the brunette said sheepishly before making her escape.

"All right, what the hell is with you today?" Misato demanded the second Maya was gone. "You're more nervous than I've ever seen you, and when you're not jumping at shadows, you're quiet and listless."

"I can't tell you," Ritsuko said. When the other woman opened her mouth to protest, she quickly added, "I'm sorry, but I just can't."

"Fine, why tell your best friend?" Misato asked, exasperated.

"I'm sorry, it's very personal," Ritsuko said, and she seemed so tired and depressed that the purple-haired woman couldn't stay annoyed at her. "But…"

"But?" Misato prompted.

"…I hate to ask this of you, since I know you've sworn off alcohol, but I really need a drink right now, and I don't want to drink alone," Ritsuko said.

The former Ops Director hesitated. She was very anxious to see what she could do with the tiny microchip that had been inside the capsule Kaji had given her, but she understood where her friend was coming from. Misato knew very well that where alcohol was concerned, people often drew lines for themselves which they were loathe to cross, and drinking alone was a big one.

"Yes, I can go to the bar with you," she answered eventually.

It was the end of the day anyway, so the two of them punched out and headed up to the surface, then made their way to a quiet bar where they got a booth in a dim corner. Misato ordered a ginger ale. Ritsuko got a vodka shot and wasted no time in knocking it back and ordering another one.

_Something is really wrong with her,_ Misato thought. She hadn't seen the bottle blonde drink this heavily since they'd been in college. Even then, Ritsuko would only consume this much booze at once when she was celebrating the end of exams.

However, she didn't try to press her friend to tell her what the problem was again, and though it made her feel a little guilty, she didn't try to slow Ritsuko down, either. It wasn't long before the scientist was well past tipsy.

"God, I'm such an idiot," Ritsuko said softly, gulping down another shot and then motioning for a fresh one.

"Why do you say that, Rits?" Misato asked. "You're the smartest person I know."

"Oh, I'm plenty book smart, but I've always been a complete fool when it came to relationships," she said, every syllable dripping with disgust at herself.

"What do you mean?"

Ritsuko barely seemed to hear her. "I thought he loved me. I did…_horrible_ things for him because I thought he loved me," she whispered. "I never should've believed that; it was obvious that he didn't care about me like that. But I did, because I wanted to believe it."

"Rits…who is 'he'?" Misato asked, feeling a spike of anger. If someone had been abusing her friend, then he was soon going to be treated to the sight of a very large, green fist rushing to meet his face. "Has 'he' been hitting you?"

Ritsuko released a harsh, unpleasant bark of laughter. "Like he'd ever stoop to something so crude," she said. "No, he just strung me along for years and years when I should've known better. And now that he's almost got what he wants, he doesn't have to pretend that he wants _me_ anymore."

"Ritsuko, who are you talking about?" Misato asked.

The blonde ignored the question again. Her speech was slurred by this point, but she still seemed to have enough of her wits about her to keep that detail to herself. "Should've known. It was so _obvious_," she said miserably, tears springing to her eyes. "With what we've been doing all along…but I thought at some point he'd come to love me. To want me more than her. I was an _idiot_. Pretty soon, he'll go down there and get what _he_ wants. And what do _I _get? I get to be alone."

Before Misato could try to get the blonde to explain her ramblings, Ritsuko started crying quietly, big, fat tears sliding down her cheeks. The bottle blonde was obviously well past squishy and completely hammered by this point.

The former Ops Director sighed. "Come on, Ritsuko," she said, placing a wad of bills on the table. "You're really drunk. Let's get you home."

"Okay," Ritsuko agreed, allowing Misato to help her up and then guide her across the bar. "You know, Misato, I always used to think you were kind of a dummy. All the drinking, the way you skipped class all the time to have sex with Kaji…thought you'd be a total mess by the time we were this age."

"How nice of you to keep that to yourself for so long, then," the purple haired woman replied dryly as she half carried Ritsuko outside.

"But looking at us today…you've got it together a lot more than me," Ritsuko said, sounding like she was on the verge of tears again. "Shows how much I know. Again."

"Don't beat yourself up, Rits," Misato said as they made their way down the street together. "I'm sure you're being too hard on yourself."

"What's the secret, Misa?" the blonde asked.

"Secret?"

"Yeah," Ritsuko said. "How'd you pull yourself up from rock bottom? Because I know you hit it. Everyone knew. That secret."

"I think you need to have the ability to overcome great fear," Misato said quietly.

Ritsuko laughed bitterly. "Then I'm screwed," she said bluntly, "because I've never had that, and I never will."

* * *

The next day found Kaworu Nagisa standing in the Evangelion cages, gazing up at the armored head of Evangelion Unit Two.

Nothing in Tokyo-3 was quite the way he'd expected it to be. His brethren had not inflicted nearly as much destruction upon the fortresses city as he would've thought, and the pilots had held up under remarkably well under the long string of assaults, very possibly because they'd been getting help from the likes of the Green Lantern.

He was disappointed that he hadn't gotten to know Shinji Ikari better. Even before he'd first encountered the Third Child, Kaworu had felt that he'd born to meet Shinji. There was just something so wonderfully _human_ about the other boy, and he'd wanted to learn as much about humanity as possible, before his time came.

Unfortunately, the Third Child had only a casual interest in getting to know the new pilot, preferring to spend most of his time with those he already trusted and cared for.

So now the hour had come, and he was left feeling unfulfilled with how he'd used his allotted time. It was a true pity, but there was nothing to be done for it now.

"Awaken, bastard spawn of Adam," he commanded the red Evangelion.

Nothing happened.

Kaworu allowed himself a small sigh of annoyance. That was another thing that went against his expectations. According to Keel, it was ordained (which, when the of leader of SEELE said that, meant that it had been written in the Dead Sea Scrolls) that the crimson Evangelion's soul would have been put to sleep by the actions of its pilot by now. Yet that clearly was not the case.

"Nevertheless…" Kaworu said, and his scarlet eyes began to glow with an otherworldly light. _**"Awaken."**_

Unit Two's head snapped up, its four eyes blazing white. Kaworu smiled, even as klaxons started to blare all around him.

* * *

"Good morning, Ritsuko," Misato said, deliberately keeping the volume of her voice low as she stopped by the scientist's office. "How are you feeling today?"

Given the dark glasses the scientist was wearing, the purple-haired woman felt pretty safe in assuming that Ritsuko had one bitch of a hangover, but it seemed like it would be impolite not to ask.

"Not so well," the scientist answered, rubbing at her temples. "God, the next time I decide to start doing shots on a weeknight, I want you to shoot me."

"Can do!" Misato replied cheerfully, giving the blonde a thumbs up.

The former Ops Director couldn't tell for sure thanks to Ritsuko's dark glasses, but she felt pretty sure that the Project-E Chairperson gave her a glare for that one. Then, without a word, she turned her gaze toward her computer screen and got to work.

Misato loitered in Ritsuko's office for a few seconds, then, seeing that the scientist apparently planned to ignore her until she left, started heading for the door.

"Misato," Ritsuko called just before she left.

"Yes?" she asked, turning.

"I didn't say anything…embarrassing last night, did I?" the bottle blonde asked quietly.

Misato shrugged. "Not really," she lied. "You just sort of rambled about how bad you are at relationships. You weren't exactly making sense, though."

"Okay, good," Ritsuko said, looking relieved. "I don't remember most of last night. Thanks for making sure I made it home safe, by the way."

"No problem," Misato said. "You know, you _can_ talk to me about things, Rits. I am your friend, after all."

"Thank you," the scientist said. "I'll keep that in—"

Alarms started to blare before she could finish, and Ritsuko moaned in pain, placing her hands over her ears.

"God, why today?" she complained.

For her own part, the former Ops Director looked down her hand, where her power ring sat, invisible, upon her finger. It should have warned her if an Angel had gotten close enough to set off the base's alarms.

"Come on!" she said, half dragging Ritsuko to her feet.

It was a long way from the Project-E Chairperson's office to the command center, and having the badly hung over scientist with her didn't exactly cut down on the time it took to make the trip. Misato dearly wished she could simply sneak away and become Green Lantern, but it would raise too many questions if she disappeared after having been in Ritsuko's office when the alarms sounded.

_It'll be fine,_ she told herself. _Even when the damn Angels seem to appear out of nowhere, there's always still at least a few minutes before it's on top of us._

Once they reached the command center, hopefully she could make some excuse to slip away. In the midst of all the chaos that came with scrambling the Evangelions for a battle, nobody would pay too much notice to a lowly advisor like her disappearing. Except maybe Kaji, but he'd probably continue assuming that she was simply avoiding him.

After what felt like an eternity, they burst into the command center, where nearly every screen was flashing a red warning message.

However, what caught Misato's eye was the main viewer, which displayed Units One and Two, descending down a massive shaft inside the base, the retrorockets in their legs blazing and preventing an uncontrolled fall. The two giants were locked in close quarters combat, stabbing and slashing at one another with their progressive knives.

"What the hell is going on?!" Misato demanded, momentarily forgetting that the NERV staff didn't technically need to rush to obey anymore when she barked orders.

Kaji turned away from the monitors to glance at her. "It turns out that the Fifth Child was an Angel infiltrator," he informed her grimly. "He's somehow managed to hijack Unit Two. Fortunately, Shinji happened to be here for a physical when he made his move."

"How the hell did he even get into Unit Two's entry plug?" Misato asked, feeling sick.

"He didn't," Makoto answered, typing in a command.

The image on one of the smaller screens shifted, showing the Fifth Child, who was suspended in mid-air before Unit Two. Misato found the placid smile on his face nothing short of sickening.

"Why are you doing this!" Shinji cried, Unit One's external speakers amplifying his voice tenfold. "I thought we were going to be friends!"

"I am doing this because I must," Kaworu answered, even as Unit Two continued to grapple furiously with its purple counterpart. "The progeny of Adam are very different from the lilim. For all your bodies' weakness, you are free to act as you please. We are ultimately slaves to our nature."

Unit One's prog knife thrust toward Kaworu himself, but a barrier of orange light sprang into being just before the strike could connect, shielding the gray haired boy.

"Why isn't Unit Zero out there, too?" Misato asked tersely.

"We don't know where Rei is, and Asuka's not compatible with Unit Zero's core," Aoba answered.

"How the hell can we just lose track of an EVA pilot?" Misato scowled.

"Unknown, ma'am," Aoba replied helplessly. It wasn't the bridge techs' job to keep track of the pilots.

Misato made a mental note to chew out Section Two, but her mind was already reeling as she tried to figure out some way she could slip away and help without it being painfully obvious that she was the Green Lantern. Slipping away before a battle, ostensibly on some errand, was one thing, but departing in the middle of one was quite another. That the battle was happening in the bowels of NERV headquarters only made the whole thing worse.

As she was desperately trying to come up with some workable plan, the image on the main screen abruptly dissolved into static.

"What's happening?" Kaji demanded.

"The power of the Angel's AT field just spiked! It's interfering with all our monitoring equipment!" Maya exclaimed.

"Damn," Kaji swore. "How close are they to Terminal Dogma?"

"Their approximate ETA is under one minute," Makoto reported.

"…Prime the base's self destruct mechanism," Kaji ordered, his voice heavy. "If the Angel manages to open Heaven's Door, detonate it."

"Yes, sir," Makoto said quietly.

Misato's hands clenched into fists. Damn her secret identity; she had to help!

She was just about to march toward the exit when the screen abruptly cleared, revealing Unit One on its hands and knees just outside the LCL production plant. The rather mangled form of Unit Two lay nearby.

"What just happened?" Kaji asked.

"The Angel's AT field and blue pattern just disappeared," Maya said softly. "Pilot Ikari must have killed him."

* * *

Kaji decided to postpone Shinji's after action debriefing. It was one of the few decisions he'd made since becoming the new Operations Director that Misato wholeheartedly agreed with.

The Third Child was pale and silent when he returned from the depths of the NERV base, and the former Ops Director didn't need to guess why. After all, as intense and painful as his previous battles had been, at least he'd been facing inhuman monsters.

Not this time.

Misato didn't even bother trying to make conversation with him at the base. Instead, she led him to her car, then drove straight to the observation deck where she had taken him after the First Battle of Tokyo-3. The city hadn't been retracted for this battle, so there would be no scene of it rising out of the ground this time, but it was still an impressive view.

Not that that was her main concern, of course.

"Shinji," she began, once both of them were out of the car.

"Please don't, Misato," he cut her off. It was the first thing he'd said since the battle.

"Don't what?" she asked, frowning.

"I know why you brought me here," he said, almost accusingly. "You're going to tell me that it's okay, that I did the right thing, and that I shouldn't feel bad. But I just killed a person, Misato. I killed him. That's _not_ okay. It makes me a murderer."

"No, it doesn't!" she said sharply.

Startled, Shinji jumped, looking at her with surprise plainly evident on his face.

"A murderer is someone who kills out of hatred, or vengeance, or greed," Misato said fiercely. "A murderer kills someone, usually an innocent, for selfish reasons of his own. Today, you killed to protect others. That doesn't make you a murderer, it makes you a soldier."

"But Misato—"

"I've killed people," she cut him off. "Back before I joined NERV, when I was part of the regular military. Do you think I'm some horrible, soulless killer?"

"Of course not!"

"Then why are you holding yourself to a different standards than me?" she asked. "You shouldn't be harsher on yourself than you are on other people like that. You'll only make yourself miserable."

Shinji sighed. "I guess you're right," he conceded, unable to argue against her logic. "But that doesn't make me feel less horrible." He said, placing a hand to his chest.

Misato embraced him then, for once being careful to make sure his face didn't end up pressed against her bust. "You have a gentle soul, Shinji," she said softly. "Too gentle for war."

"Misato…"

"I know that it hurts," she said. "It's not an easy thing, to kill, no matter how good and justified your reasons might be, and the first time's always the worst. I wish I could take the pain away from you, but I can't.

"You should know, though," she continued, "that I don't look at you and see a murderer. I see an incredibly brave young man who was thrust into a role he didn't want, and who's been defending humanity from certain destruction this whole time."

Shinji didn't reply. He just wrapped his arms around Misato and squeezed her tightly.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I must admit that I frequently find myself not quite knowing what to do Kaworu, and this was one of those times. As a result, I decided to focus more on both Misato and Shinji discovering a few things that had been kept secret from them.

In any event, we've finally finished with the Angels in this story, leaving only EoE to go. After starting the SOE2 series all the way back in 2009, the story that started it is finally nearing its end. I promise it'll go out with a bang.

As always, thanks to all my readers and reviewers.

* * *

Omake!

A Momentous Discovery

"No way," he breathed. He hadn't seriously thought he'd find reason to believe that Misato was the Green Lantern while he was at this. In fact, he'd forgotten that the idea had ever crossed his mind several minutes ago.

With suddenly shaking hands, Shinji slowly started picking up clothes again, and soon the green light reappeared. It wasn't long before the Third Child had exposed what looked like an old fashioned train lantern made of a dark green metal.

"Incredible," he breathed, grabbing the handle and picking it up. An otherworldly emerald light glowed from within the lantern, but there was no flame or heat.

He smiled suddenly. He knew _just_ what to do with this.

* * *

_Zap!_

Several hours later, Shinji was sitting in his room, still marveling at his own cleverness.

_Zap!_

Sure, most people would've seen the lantern and hidden it again, never taking the risk of Misato finding out it had been discovered.

_Zap!_

Others might have even seen it as opportunity to blackmail Misato, either by threatening to expose her secret or by hiding the battery and not giving it back until their demands were met.

_Zap!_

But not Shinji. Oh no. He had looked at the emerald green power battery, and he had seen its _true_ potential.

"Those damned mosquitoes will never bother me again!" he cackled, as he watched another of the pesky insects fly toward the lantern, which he'd hung from his ceiling. They all seemed to be completely enthralled by it.

_Zap!_


	16. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC comics or anything associated with it and am making no profit off this fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

**Chapter Fifteen:** Those Who Worship Evil's Might

Darkness filled the room, leaving it a complete abyss. Considering that the chamber was virtual and did not truly even exist when it was not in use, that could be considered only appropriate. It also could've been considered a fitting representation for the men who used the place and their goals.

Then, there was light.

The island of illumination in the sea of blackness revealed a single dark monolith with the words "SEELE 01" emblazoned upon it in glowing red characters.

"The Angels have all be dealt with," Chairman Keel announced from behind the safety of his holographic avatar, his voice heavily distorted.

One by one, the other members of the SEELE council appeared, other monoliths standing in for them.

"All the Angels are dead save for Adam and Lilith, the seeds of creation necessary to remake the world," SEELE 02 added.

"The time for the conclusion of our great plan is finally at hand," SEELE 03 put in.

"The death and rebirth of the human species is imminent," SEELE 04 said.

"As is our immortality," SEELE 05 added.

"But one obstacle remains before our transcendence to glory," SEELE 06 warned. "The road is ending, but difficulties yet remain."

"Ikari," SEELE 07 growled.

"He has lied to us and attempted to deceive us for years," SEELE 08 hissed.

"Of late, he has barely even bothered to hide his treachery," SEELE 09 agreed.

"He has his own agenda, his own plans for the end," SEELE 10 said.

"He controls both Adam and Lilith, as well as his own nephilim," SEELE 11 said. "He _must_ not be allowed to use them."

"Decisive action on our part is required, and soon," SEELE 12 concluded.

"Tomorrow," SEELE 01 said, making the decision that he knew his colleagues all wanted, but were too timid to propose themselves. "We will give Ikari one final chance to return to the fold. If he does not, I am prepared to unleash the dogs of war upon NERV Central. We have kept them as vulnerable to a conventional assault as possible, and I am ready to deal with their Evangelions. It is within our capability to take what we need from Ikari, all the essential pieces needed to invoke a Third Impact of our design."

"And what if Tokyo-3's more…colorful denizens object to a military attack on their home city?" SEELE 03 asked, offering the council's leader a rare challenge.

"If the so-called superwomen choose to intervene, I expect they will find that the EVA Series is too much for them to handle," SEELE 01 said.

It was the best answer he could give; though the council had long been concerned with the superwomen who had started appearing in Tokyo-3 during the Angel War, they had largely delegated the task of dealing with them to Gendo Ikari. The members of SEELE had not truly expected to find them all still alive and active at this critical, climactic moment, but Gendo's lack of success at neutralizing them meant that that was exactly the situation they were faced with.

Yet Keel _was_ confident in the power of the Mass Produced Evangelions. Boasting S2 organs and the most advanced version of the Dummy System to date, they were each an order of magnitude more powerful than anything NERV Central had ever fielded.

"Tomorrow our conflict with Ikari _will_ end, one way another," he said. "The world as humanity now knows it will see only one more sunrise."

* * *

Meanwhile, deep within NERV headquarters, Misato Katsuragi was hard at work, blissfully unaware of the hammer that was due to fall upon Tokyo-3 in less than 24 hours' time.

Of course, the former Operations Director was not in her small office, filling out the paperwork that was now ultimately Kaji's responsibility. Instead, she was sequestered within the bowels of the MAGI, her red jacket wrapped around her in an attempt to ward off the chill. The supercomputer's hardware needed a serious cooling system to keep it working at maximum performance and to prevent overheating.

Normally, the cold probably would've quickly driven her away, but Misato was far too absorbed in what she was doing to let it bother her much. The chip that Kaji had given her had quickly become her new favorite object; it was giving her _far_ more access to NERV's dirty laundry than she had ever had before.

"So, NERV _did_ sabotage the Jet Alone," she said, scanning the contents of yet another restricted file.

That just confirmed what she already knew, of course, but the part that did surprise her was that Ritsuko had played a major role in the sabotage, writing the new commands that would make the nuclear powered robot go berserk and then almost meltdown before abruptly stopping at the last moment.

Of course, she really should've suspected that Ritsuko had had a hand in that. After all, there weren't many people at NERV who could've pulled off such a feat, and there were fewer still who could've been considered a part of the Commander's inner circle.

Still, she had never really thought her friend would do something like that.

_Even though the damn thing was programmed to insert the shut down rods into the reactor before it exploded, I could've died trying to get into it,_ Misato thought, thinking back to her hold bold attempt to get into the robot and directly input the commands needed to stop it. _And she just let me go._

Not only that, but with this new knowledge, Ritsuko's drunken ramblings from their last outing together were starting to take on even more disturbing implications than they'd already had.

_"I thought he loved me. I did…__**horrible**__ things for him because I thought he loved me."_

When Ritsuko had let out her woes spill out like that, Misato hadn't known who "he" was, since the bottle blonde had made a point of keeping that secret to herself. Honestly, Misato didn't even feel like she could make a guess; Ritsuko was always so wedded to her that work that the purple-haired woman couldn't figure where the scientist would've found the _time_ for a long tryst.

But if it was an "office romance" with someone at NERV, say the Commander…

Misato made a face. It was hard to think of Gendo Ikari as a man who had needs, and who some women might find desirable. The first time she'd ever seen him actually commanding anything had been when she had brought Shinji to NERV headquarters, and that whole episode had sealed him in her mind as a cold excuse for a father and quite the jerk, if admittedly also a leader who wouldn't hesitate to do what he felt needed to be done. She supposed Ritsuko would've had much more time to get to know him, though.

The purple-haired woman shook her head. It was all just speculation at this point; she needed to know more, but she couldn't search through NERV's secret files too quickly. The chip that Kaji had given her was incredible, but decrypting the secret files in the MAGI still took time.

Carefully selecting another file, Misato started the process, shivering in the super computer's cold innards as she waited for it to be ready. After what felt like an endless period of time, her laptop released a quiet chime, signaling that it was done, and that she could delve deeper into the rabbit hole, as Kaji had put it. Misato opened the file and started to examine the contents.

She let out a small gasp, her breath turning to steam in the frigid air around her.

NERV was keeping an Angel down in Terminal Dogma. It was apparently the bait that Central was using the lure in the other Angels. Misato had long ago figured that _something_ was drawing them to Tokyo-3, but Ritsuko had just spoken techno-babble to her for a good twenty minutes when Misato had asked about it, so she had eventually abandoned the question.

That NERV was hiding such a thing would've been disturbing by itself, but what made matters far worse was that Commander Ikari seemed to have some kind of plan to use it for…something. The contents of the file didn't spell it out, but they did mention the First Child.

_"Pretty soon, he'll go down there and get what __**he**__ wants. And what do __**I **__get? I get to be alone,"_ Ritsuko again whispered from her memory.

If "he" was the Commander, and "down there" was Terminal Dogma…Misato didn't even want to think about what might happen. After all, the last time man had played around with one of the Angels, Second Impact had been the result.

_But how is Rei involved?_ She wondered.

She was about to delve further into the whole morass of secrets, but her wristwatch happened to beep at just that moment. Looking at it, Misato was surprised to see that it was nearing the end of her workday. It hadn't felt like she'd been down in the guts of the supercomputer nearly that long.

Misato was very tempted to stay and keep working anyway. She wanted—needed—to know what was _really_ happening at NERV.

However…

Shinji was still having difficulty coping with what had happened, and Misato wanted to be around for him.

She sighed, sending another cloud of steam into the air. "Well," she muttered to herself as she went to the task of concealing her riffling through NERV's electronic files, "These secrets have stayed buried this long without the world ending. I guess this can wait another couple of days."

* * *

While Misato Katsuragi was leaving NERV headquarters and heading for home, Rei Ayanami was already in the apartment where she had lived for the past several years. Sitting on her old, creaky bed, the First Child held the broken glasses that Gendo Ikari had given her. They were the ones he'd been wearing when her activation test in Unit Zero had gone horribly wrong, and he had opened her superheated entry plug with his bare hands to get her out of there.

Ever since then, the glasses had been an important keepsake to Rei, the only item in the world that she considered precious. Just looking at them had made her think about how much the Commander cared for her.

But things were…different now.

_He threatened me._

This was the thought that had been ringing through Rei's head ever since he had so meaningfully reminded her that she could be replaced.

That had shaken the First Child to her very core. Commander Ikari was the one who had always been there for her for as long as she could remember. The Commander had given her everything she had. She only _existed_ because of the Commander.

For the vast majority of her life, she had had absolute faith in him.

Yet he had threatened to replace her with the third, and because of things which had been out of her control, at that.

Just remembering the way he had glared at her chilled the First Child to the bone.

_What am I to do?_

She had known, for a long time, that she would eventually have to make a decision. A decision about what—and who—was most important to her. She had dithered and put it off, however, because she didn't want to choose.

Because the thought of choosing scared her.

Now there was no more time for postponement. A decision had to be made.

Rei sighed softly, looking down at the broken spectacles in her hands. It was going to be a very long night, she realized.

* * *

The scream that sounded though the Katsuragi apartment that night doubtlessly would've garnered complaints from the neighbors, if any of the building's other residences were occupied.

Shinji Ikari, the one who had released said scream, sat bolt upright in his bed, covered in a cold sweat. The Third Child belatedly clamped a hand over his mouth, even though he knew the damage had already been done. Turning his head to look at his bedside clock, he winced when he saw that it was just after two in the morning.

A second later, the door to his small bedroom slid open, and Misato walked inside, clad in a large yellow T-shirt that hung down to about mid-thigh on her.

Immediately, Shinji started trying to stammer out apologies.

Only to be stopped when Misato put a finger to his lips. "Shh," she said softly. "It's okay. I'm not mad…though you're pretty lucky Asuka decided to spend the night at Hikari's place. You know how she gets when someone interrupts her beauty sleep."

Though this was an obvious attempt at brevity on her part, Shinji couldn't help but wince. He knew that he was the reason Asuka was spending the night at her friend's home; this was not the first time a nightmare had made him cry out loud enough to wake the other residents of the apartment.

"So, the same nightmare again?" Misato asked, sitting down on the edge of his bed.

Shinji nodded, struggling not to go to pieces right there. It seemed like every time he went to sleep, he relived the battle against the last Angel, against Kaworu. The feel of crushing the tiny figure in Unit One's armored fist, of Kaworu's body just…coming apart like wet clay in "his" grip remained completely fresh in his memory thanks to the damn nightmares.

"When do they stop, Misato?" he asked miserably, hoping she would know. "When do I stop going back to that moment every time I try to rest?"

His guardian sighed, taking his hand in hers. Her hand was dry and pleasantly warm, unlike his own, which he was knew damp and clammy.

"I wish I could tell you that, Shinji, but I can't," she said. "I think it's different for everybody."

"I'm afraid to go to sleep these days," he said quietly, embarrassed to make the admission but feeling like he needed to tell _somebody_, if only to get it out. "I don't want to, but of course I have to. I feel like it's driving me crazy. I would…I would do almost anything just for one good night's sleep."

He had almost said that he would kill for a good night's sleep, but had stopped himself from using the common phrase at the last moment, realizing how darkly ironic _that_ would have been.

Misato gave him a small, rather sad smile. Then, to his great surprise, she lifted up his blanket and climbed into the bed, getting behind him.

"Uh, Misato? What are you doing?" he asked as she encircled his waist and slowly guided his head back down to the pillow.

"Hopefully something that'll let you sleep a little more peacefully tonight," she replied. "Don't tell anyone about this, okay?"

"Of course not," he agreed at once.

He could only imagine Asuka's reaction if she learned about this.

And it _was_ very nice. Shinji could actually feel the way Misato's warm embrace was soothing his raw nerves.

"I'm sorry I'm so weak that I keep waking you up like this," he spoke softly into the darkness.

"You are not weak, Shinji," she replied, her voice quiet but firm. "Anyone in your position would be having nightmares like this. You're a lot braver and stronger than you think, than you're ever thought. I know you won't believe this, but there aren't many people who could've done everything that you have in this damn war. Even if they had the benefit of things you didn't, like training before your first battle."

"Mmm," Shinji just made a little noise of acknowledgement. She was right; he didn't believe it, but he didn't want to argue over it, either.

"I'm serious," she said. "If I had to go into a battle in hell, I don't think there's anyone I'd rather have at my side than you, Shinji."

He blinked. "Thank you, Misato," he said.

They lapsed into silence after that, and the Third Child felt himself starting to drift off again, faster than he would've thought possible after another recurrence of his new nightmare.

"Shinji?" Misato whispered softly into the quiet darkness, clearly not sure if he was asleep yet or not.

"Yes?" he asked.

"What am I to you?" she asked.

"What?"

"I mean, what…role do you see me as having to you?" she asked. She seemed like she was struggling to figure out how to best phrase the question.

He frowned, confused. Then he remembered the conversation they'd had after the disaster that the battle against the Thirteenth Angel turned in, when he'd thought that Misato was going to say he was like a son to her, or something.

Now understanding the question, Shinji paused as he considered it. The way she had come in to comfort him that evening, and on a few occasions in the past, was almost motherly. There had been a few times when he knew he would've broken without her support.

Yet it was hard to think of Misato that way; she was so playful and so prone to teasing him (and perhaps just a bit too immature at times) that she didn't seem old enough to be anyone's mother, let alone his. An older sister, maybe, but not a mother.

Besides, half the time it almost seemed like he was taking care of _her_ as much as was caring for him. He was the one capable of keeping the apartment presentable. He did most of the cooking, along with the bulk of the other household chores like the laundry.

Also…well, there was no denying that the feel of her soft bust pressed against his back, their skin separated by only a couple of layers of cotton, evoked feelings in him that a person _definitely_ wasn't supposed to have for family members.

He really couldn't put a label on her, he realized.

"You're my Misato," he finally said, aware that his answer mirrored the one she had given him back in that holding cell during his darkest hour.

She chuckled, obviously remembering as well, and tightened her hold on his waist slightly, snuggling into him. "Good night, Shinji," she whispered. "Sleep well."

* * *

Morning in Tokyo-3 dawned bright and sunny, with not a single cloud in the crystal blue sky. It was nothing short of postcard of pretty.

In the virtual meeting chamber where the SEELE council met with Gendo Ikari, however, it was always dark and grim.

Gendo sat at his desk in the dim chamber, silent as the twelve monoliths representing the old men appeared around him, accompanied by the sound of a soft whoosh of air.

The noise was completely artificial, of course. The holograms made nary a whisper by themselves when they materialized, but someone had decided that some sort of sound effect was necessary.

Gendo had always hated that pointless little addition. He was glad that this was the last time he'd be dealing with it.

"So, here we are again, Ikari," Keel remarked. His avatar and the voice distortion made him anonymous only to anyone who might've been eavesdropping on the extremely secure meeting somehow, but everyone present knew who SEELE 01 was, of course.

"Indeed," Gendo agreed.

"But it is not like all the times we have met in the past, is it?" Keel asked. "The stage is set for the final act. The only question is, which part will you play in it?"

"There is no need for us to fight, here at the end," SEELE 02 added. "Do what you agreed you would when we first appointed you Commander of NERV, and all your previous sins will be forgiven. You will be allowed to take your place at our side in the new world we are about to create."

The Commander's usual poker face gave way to just a tiny sneer. "No, I don't think I'll be doing that."

The facade of reasonableness the council was trying to project quickly broke. "You will regret this, Ikari," Keel warned. "We are—"

"You are a bunch of frightened old men," Gendo cut him off, abruptly rising to his feet. "And deep down, you know it. That's why you made me the Commander of NERV Central. None of you had the strength for the job."

"Regardless of whether that's true or not, what relevance does that have to this situation?" SEELE 02 demanded, not even bothering to try and mask his fury. "We still have ample resources of our own. Things you are ill prepared to deal with."

"You have _no_ _idea_ what I am prepared to deal with," Gendo said, glowering at the monoliths. "I have Adam, I have Lilith, I have three battle tested Evangelions, and I have removed the Lance from the equation. I have assets you could barely dream of," he paused. "If you want to take what you need from me, you are welcome to try, but don't say I didn't warn you when I break the lot of you."

"So be it, Ikari."

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the Katsuragi apartment, a much more placid scene was playing out. The lady of the apartment's eyes were slowly fluttering open as sleep gently left her.

_Where am I?_ Was her first, groggy thought as she released a small yawn. She could tell right away from the lack of sunlight streaming into the room that this wasn't her room, but she couldn't immediately figure out her location.

Then she felt movement beneath her, and she abruptly realized that she wasn't alone in bed.

Looking up, she saw the face of the still sleeping Shinji Ikari, and the memories of last night came back to her.

Amazingly, despite the small size of Shinji's bed, which really wasn't large enough for two people, she discovered that they were in a completely different position than the one they'd gone to sleep in. Misato found that her head was laying on his chest, and his arm was around her shoulders. She couldn't imagine how that could've happened.

That didn't mean she was upset about it, though. Just the opposite, in fact.

She had almost forgotten how nice it was to wake up in a man's arms. She hadn't had a serious relationship since Kaji. There had been a few one-night stands here and there, but Misato had found the other side of the bed empty after every single one of those.

Of course, the whole situation raised an interesting question, namely if she wanted to wake up next to Shinji on a more regular basis. Part of her wanted to reject the idea immediately; the significant age gap between them _was_ a big issue, to put it mildly.

Yet another part of her started to seriously consider it. She had, after all, already decided that he was an indispensable part of her life, so it wasn't a question of whether she wanted him to be with her, it was just a matter of what capacity she wanted him around in.

They had never _quite_ had a real guardian/child relationship, despite her clumsy efforts in the beginning at being a parent to him. Also, if she was being totally honest with herself, she would have to admit that a big part of the reason that she had never quite been able to see him as a surrogate son was because she had certain feelings for him that she had never dared to confess to anyone.

_He's a cute kid,_ she mused, looking at his face. In a few years, he would probably be a very handsome man.

She supposed she could wait for him. After all, she wasn't as old as she used to be.

But still…

Shinji chose that moment to stir, his eyes opening. He gave Misato a bleary-eyed, vaguely confused look, clearly not fully awake yet.

"So," the purple-haired woman breathed, "was it as good for you as it was for me?"

"Wha?!" Shinji exclaimed, his face instantly going crimson.

"Just kidding," Misato giggled as she sat up and stretched widely. "We didn't do _that_ last night, Shinji."

"Oh…"

"Believe me, if we had, you would've remembered it," Misato added with a wink.

Shinji just groaned, looking exasperated.

"So, how did you sleep?" she asked him, becoming somewhat more serious.

"Good," he said, sounding both relieved and a little surprised. "Much better than I have since…you know, the last battle."

"I'm glad," Misato said. "Now what's for breakfast, Shinji?"

* * *

NERV Central had a massive bull's-eye painted on it. It had never been announced, of course, but those individuals who were in a position to see the signs could easily tell as much.

General Katsuro of the JSSDF was one such individual. For weeks, he had watched as equipment and personnel were quietly transferred from all across the country to the area around Tokyo-3. It was the largest gathering of Japanese martial might in one place since the Impact Wars had thrown the world into chaos over a decade ago.

Then, just recently, news had been coming in about how Gendo Ikari had had an agent of the Human Instrumentality Committee—and thus an agent of the UN—killed to protect his secrets and his control of NERV.

Most of the men and women in the JSSDF were inclined to believe that. The regular military had always had a very low opinion of NERV, not only because the paramilitary group had embarrassed them by defeating the Third Angel when they could not, but also because the organization used child soldiers and was disturbingly fond of secrecy.

Under other circumstances, Katsuro might've been only too happy to swallow the story himself, and damn the lack of hard evidence being presented, but as it was, he knew better. Someone had set up for an attack on NERV first and was coming up with a justification for it second.

He was less than shocked when the phone on his desk rang early that morning.

"Katsuro here," he answered.

"Good morning, General," the Prime Minister's voice responded. "I have new orders for you."

"Of course," Katsuro replied, trying not to sigh.

"Minutes ago, the government ordered NERV Central to stand down. They refused," the Prime Minister said. "You are to attack the complex with overwhelming force. No quarter given."

"Sir, I feel I should remind you that these are Japanese citizens you're ordering me to assault," Katsuro said. "I beg you to consider a more peaceful solution to—"

"No," the Prime Minister cut him off. "I have reason to believe that Ikari intends to use the Evangelions against the government and the UN. He must be stopped before he can act. I want NERV headquarters wiped off the face of the Earth. Make sure anyone who wants to utilize Evangelion technology will have to develop it from scratch."

"I understand, sir," Katsuro said.

"Good," the Prime Minister replied coldly, ending the call.

It didn't take the general long to issue the orders that would bring hell upon Tokyo-3 and NERV. At this point, everyone was just waiting for someone to give the word.

Once he was done, he leaned back in his chair with a sigh and massaged his temple.

"God forgive me," he muttered.

* * *

Back in Tokyo-3, Shinji and Misato were just finishing up breakfast, completely oblivious to what was coming their way. The Third Child was still in his pajamas, though the former Ops Director had used the time he'd spent cooking their meal to dress and pull herself together.

"So when is Asuka supposed to be coming back to—?"

Shinji's question was cut off as a series of very familiar sirens started to sound across the city. The EVA pilot and the officer traded a look. Another Angel?

Then Misato's cell phone went off. Shinji watched as the purple-haired woman answered it with fumbling hands. "Katsuragi here," she said.

There was a moment of silence as Misato listened to whoever was on the other end of the call. Then her brown eyes widened.

_"What?!_" she screeched, causing Shinji to jump in surprise.

Misato listened for a moment. "What about Asuka? Is she…? Okay good," she said. "Yes, I understand. I'm on my way."

"What's going on?" Shinji demanded, even before Misato had quite finished.

It was a good thing, too, because his guardian was in motion the second she hung up the phone. "The JSSDF is moving toward the city. They're going to attack NERV," she answered as she headed toward her room.

"Wh-What?! But why?" Shinji asked, following her.

"Damned if I know," she answered as she slid open the door to her cluttered living space. "That's not important, anyway. We have to get you to NERV. They'll be looking for the pilots. I'm sure they know you live here."

"What about Asuka and Rei?" Shinji asked, feeling his heartbeat accelerate.

"Asuka had a training session in the EVA simulator scheduled for this morning and is already there," Misato answered, throwing open the door to her closet with so much force that it generated a loud bang as it hit the frame. "So is Rei, for whatever reason."

That calmed Shinji down a little bit, but not much. "But this is insane! All we've done is protect Japan from the Angels! They shouldn't be attacking us!"

"Damn it, where is it?" Misato muttered to herself, throwing clothes all over the place as she dug through the mess in her closet. Then she turned back to the Third Child. "Shinji, there's no time now. I'm going to head out for NERV in a second and do everything I can to help. _You_ need to get dressed as quickly as you can. There's a Section Two detail waiting outside with a car to take you to headquarters."

"But—"

_"Move!"_ she ordered.

Shinji obeyed automatically. Giving Misato a quick nod, the Third Child rushed to his bedroom, where he frantically started throwing on one of his school uniforms.

He was just fastening his belt when he heard the familiar screeching of tires that meant Misato was peeling away in her beloved Renault.

Which was exactly when it finally clicked.

He had wondered what Misato was looking for in her closet. He knew she wasn't searching for her service pistol; for all her slovenly behavior, she was very responsible when it came to the weapon, and she would never lose it in there. Yet he hadn't been able to figure out what else she'd stop to search for in such a situation. It hadn't really seemed all that important, though, with everything else that was going on. Now he realized, though.

She had been searching for that lantern made of the otherworldly green metal, the one that emitted light but no heat.

Misato had had so much trouble finding it because after Shinji had gone snooping and discovered the thing, he'd hidden it again as far back in the closet as he could.

_Oh no…_

Pieces clicked together in the Third Child's head as his frantic mind whirled. Misato obviously intended to go and combat the JSSDF as the Green Lantern. That was why she had left before him; she didn't want to reveal the secret he'd already found out about.

Did she need that lantern thing she'd had hidden to use her superpowers? He didn't understand why she would, but it _had_ to be important if she'd spent precious seconds turning her closet inside out in pursuit of the object.

Had she found it?

Shinji bolted out of his room and back into Misato's at top speed, nearly crashing right into a wall in his haste. Opening the closet again, he quickly reached toward the back and started to shift aside the clothes piled there.

His heart sank as he pulled the emerald green lantern from the mess.

"Oh God…" he muttered to himself.

Misato needed this thing. He didn't know precisely why, or what the consequences of her not having it would be, exactly, but he knew she needed it. He also knew she didn't have it because of him.

_I have to get it to her!_ He thought.

Reaching up to a high shelf inside the closet, Shinji pulled down a large hat box. Opening it and carelessly tossing aside the hat contained within, he put the lantern in its place, finding that it _just_ fit inside. Jamming the lid back on, he dashed out of the apartment, running down the several flights of stairs to reach the ground floor at top speed.

The Section Two agents waiting outside by a black sedan frowned as he approached.

"What's with the box, kid?" one of them asked.

"Never mind that!" Shinji panted as he practically leaped into the back seat of the vehicle. "We have to go!"

* * *

"Okay…done," Ritsuko proclaimed, typing in a final command and pressing the enter key before vacating Maya's seat on the command center. "That should keep them from beating us by simply hacking the MAGI."

"Amazing," Maya breathed as she reclaimed her chair and started to check out what her mentor had done. "I never would have imagined that a firewall that powerful could exist."

"Thanks, Rits," Kaji said to the bottle blonde softly.

Ritsuko didn't seem very appreciative of his gratitude. "I barely even know why I bothered doing this," she grumbled. "I should've just let this place collapse around the Commander's ears. That would've served the bastard right. Besides, we both know I only delayed the inevitable."

Kaji quirked an eyebrow. "You know, I'm hardly Ikari's biggest fan, but I understand that he _did_ prevent you from having a meeting with the Committee that probably would've been pretty unpleasant," he said. "Heard that he wasn't exactly diplomatic about it, either."

Ritsuko snorted, reaching into her pocket and withdrawing a single, rather battered looking cigarette. Her hands were shaking badly as she went to light it, he noted.

Of course, smoking on the command center wasn't allowed, but with everything else that was going on, nobody cared about enforcing such a minor rule.

"Ikari hasn't exactly been diplomatic to anyone lately, including me, so you'll forgive me if I'm not more grateful to him," she grumped. "I guess with the endgame so near he decided to drop all the facades a little early."

Kaji frowned, wondering just what the hell Ikari had done to his old friend. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to contemplate the question. He had to try and do Misato's job now.

"Uh, sir," Makoto spoke up, "there are some very large bombers approaching the city…"

* * *

"What the hell was that?" Asuka demanded as she felt Unit Two shudder around her as it was moved to one of the EVA lifts.

"The JSSDF used an N2 mine to destroy the plate above the Geofront," Kaji answered her. Even in the small window projected on her HUD, Asuka could see how perturbed the usually calm and collected man was.

"You've got to be kidding!" Asuka shrilled, horrified. "What about all the civilians in the city?" She asked, thinking about Hikari and her other classmates.

"They should be all right, assuming they got to a shelter. None of them are in the plate," Kaji said. "Now, focus. You're the only pilot who's here right now, so we need you at the top of your game."

"Right," Asuka said, gripping her control yolks.

She had always wanted a chance to prove what she could do in her Unit Two when neither Shinji nor Rei was around, but this wasn't the sort of situation she ever would have wished for.

A dull thud was sent reverberating through her Unit Two as it finally reached the proper place on the electromagnetic catapult.

"Unit Two, launch!" she shouted.

With a crackling burst of electricity, the red colossus was sent rocketing toward the surface. Asuka grit her teeth as the force of acceleration pressed down on her, the sensation familiar but still pleasant.

The ride was shorter than usual. Just like when NERV had faced the Fourteenth Angel, Asuka found herself and her Evangelion being deployed directly into the Geofront.

It was none too soon. Dozens upon dozens of VTOLs were descending into the massive hole that had once been the Geofront roof, and Asuka could see what looked like hundreds of parachutes as infantry were dropped from other planes. A line of heavy tanks had broken through one of the tunnels to the Geofront and was thundering toward the pyramid near the center.

"I never wanted to kill _people_," the redhead whispered to herself, drawing the pallet rifle that was slung over her Unit Two's shoulder. "But you idiots aren't giving me a choice here. If you want a war, you get a war."

The scarlet Evangelion pointed its rifle upwards and pressed the trigger. The relatively narrow confines of the Geofront gave the VTOLs very little room to maneuver, especially when they were just passing through the still smoking hole that the nuke had left in the plate. Asuka watched as they exploded in rapid succession, becoming short lived flecks of radiance in the distance before they were nothing more than charred debris. Yet still they kept coming, as though there was no end to them.

The line of VTOLs still hadn't abated when the pallet rifle clicked empty.

"Damn," the Second Child swore, tossing away the now useless firearm contemptuously. She would have to wait until the rest of the planes got a bit closer to the ground before she could attack them now.

The tanks, on the other hand, were another story entirely.

Unit Two took off at a sprint for the approaching armor unit, the giant's footsteps making the ground in the massive cave tremble. The crews of the approaching heavy tanks no doubt saw it coming—a person would have to be blind to missing seeing _that_—but there was nothing they could do about it. Their vehicles were nowhere near as quick or as maneuverable as an Evangelion.

The crimson giant's massive feet came slamming down upon one multi-billion yen piece of military hardware after another, crushing them like empty soda cans.

"This what you get when you attack a place that's protected by the Great Asuka Langley Soryu!" she roared.

Above her, several of the surviving VTOLs unleashed a barrage of missiles aimed squarely at Unit Two's back. The ordnance could never hope to get through the Evangelion's armor, let alone its AT field. However, the missiles _did_ succeed in severing the thick power cord connected to the massive war machine.

Inside her entry plug, Asuka scowled as she ejected the now useless plug from her EVA's back with a mental command, her eyes flicking over to the timer as it activated and started to tick down from five minutes.

"Plenty of time!" she proclaimed.

* * *

"That loathsome Evangelion."

"Ikari has actually done it," SEELE 02 said, as the members of the secretive cabal watched a live feed of the final battle for Tokyo-3. "He has deployed an Evangelion against our forces. The ultimate act of defiance."

"He does have little to lose at this point," SEELE 04 remarked sardonically. "In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say."

"Fortunately, we are prepared to deal with everything Ikari can throw at us," SEELE 01 responded.

* * *

Circling in the sky over Tokyo-3, high above of even the city's most sophisticated anti-air batteries, nine massive aircraft circled the now devastated urban center in formation. They had appeared shortly after the JSSDF had ensured complete and total air superiority in the air, but they hadn't done anything since.

They were waiting for further orders, which Chairman Keel had just given.

Massive doors on the underbellies of the planes swung open, but the aircraft didn't drop bombs. They dropped giants.

The lanky forms of the Mass Produced EVA Series plummeted toward the ground, their crimson Dummy Plugs sliding into the cavities in their backs as they fell. The white Evangelions jerked as they were brought to life, their huge mitts gripping the massive bladed weapons they held tightly as their grotesque mouths formed wide grins.

Massive wings sprouted from their backs, and they soared down into the Geofront in perfect formation. Though they all decelerated greatly as they came in for a landing, their armored boots still left deep, deep footprints in the unpaved earth they touched down upon.

Nearby, NERV's lone defender, the EVA Series' crimson older sibling, spotted them and quickly shifted into an attack stance.

* * *

Misato drove about halfway to one of the tunnels that led into Geofront before she brought her Renault Alpine to a screeching halt and got out of her vehicle.

It was hard to judge when she could safely assume that she was no longer being watched. With everything on high alert, NERV would be keeping a much closer watch on its key personnel than normal. Misato technically hadn't fit into that category since she'd left the Ops Director post, but as the guardian to two of the pilots, she had no doubt that Gendo Ikari kept a loose eye on her anyway.

Regardless, she didn't have the time to err on the side of caution.

Slamming the door as she got out, the purple-haired woman said a brief prayer that the god of motor vehicles would keep her ride safe. Then she clenched her fist, feeling the smooth metal of the currently invisible power ring on her finger.

Emerald light flared around Misato Katsuragi, and when it had dimmed somewhat, Green Lantern stood in her place.

"Ring, power check."

_"Power levels at 68 percent,"_ it answered in its perpetually flat voice.

She couldn't help but wince at that; she really wished she could've recharged before she left, but of course she'd managed to misplace the thing that fueled her superpowers, slob that she was.

Which meant 68 percent would just have to do.

Taking to the air, the luminous superwoman continued on her previous course, moving far faster than even her powerful vehicle could ever hope to go. In seconds, she was streaking through the tunnel that led down into the massive cave below Tokyo-3, her bright aura painting the drab walls around her green as she passed by.

_Okay,_ she thought, as she tried to get a handle on her whirling thoughts and panicked emotions, _I probably have some time, at least. It'll take a while to get a significant taskforce down into the Geofront, and NERV is no doubt going to make it as difficult as possible for them. There's no way they're making a big enough hole through the plate to send a lot of forces, though, even with—_

_**BOOM!**_

The tunnel shuddered violently, and pieces of the ceiling and walls started to collapse. Green Lantern reflexively projected a force bubble around herself to stop an avalanche of debris that mercifully never came. She had no doubt that she would've been thrown off her feet if she'd been standing.

"Ring, what the hell was that?!" she demanded.

_"An N2 device was deployed upon this city,"_ it answered.

"Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me!" she exclaimed, running a gloved hand through her long dark hair.

The ring remained obnoxiously silent, which was a pretty good indication that it had been as serious as it usually was.

Even though she was already going at speeds that could be considered reckless at best, Green Lantern accelerated. In only seconds, she was approaching the end of the tunnel, but she quickly found that she wasn't alone. A long line of tanks and Humvees were rumbling toward the Geofront ahead of her.

_This is probably the tunnel Section Two will use to take Shinji to NERV…_

Green Lantern concentrated, and a beam of light burst forth from her ring, quickly taking on the shape of an improbably large bulldozer; the construct was two lanes wide and almost too large to move the tunnel.

"Coming through!" she yelled.

If the soldiers driving the tanks and other vehicles saw what was approaching them from behind, they never had a chance to react. Green Lantern's construct slammed into them, pushing them forwards like they were toys, making several of the multi-ton armor units tumble end over end as they went. She never even had to slow down.

A moment later the emerald superwoman burst out into the open air of the Geofront, still pushing the group of military vehicles. She came to an abrupt halt, her construct morphing into a large sphere that captured what remained of the unfortunate armor group she had ambushed within it. Green Lantern wound up like a major league pitcher, then sent her captives flying.

She didn't bother to watch them sail though the air and eventually land in the middle of the lake. Instead, she turned her gaze toward the much larger battle playing out inside the massive cave.

Unit Two was doing battle with _nine_ Evangelions she had never seen before, all of them clad in white armor and all of them perfectly identical. The other branches of NERV had completed the EVA Series, and she'd never had any idea.

She could also see a multitude of tanks and other heavy combat gear rumbling out of the other tunnels that led into the Geofront. The air was filled with more combat VTOLs than she would've believed the cavern could possibly hold.

It was a damned full scale war, and powerful though she was, even Green Lantern was just one woman.

"Priorities," she muttered to herself. "Shinji should be on his way here, and Asuka's obviously in Unit Two there. Ring, locate Rei Ayanami."

A jade hologram of NERV headquarters appeared before her, and a dot started to blink at the very bottom section. _"Rei Ayanami is currently located in Terminal Dogma."_

Green Lantern's eyes widened. That was where Ikari was keeping his pet Angel hidden, and though she hadn't discovered exactly what he planned to do, she still knew that having it and Rei in the same place was a _bad_ thing. She had to go and stop him from executing whatever scheme he had in mind, but she didn't want to just abandon Asuka to fight the EVA Series alone.

_Even though she's kicking ass right now,_ Green Lantern thought as she saw Unit Two raise one of the white Evangelions above its head and rip the other giant in two with its bare hands, causing blood to cascade down upon the already red EVA.

Of course, regardless of Asuka's piloting skills, the odds were still against her; she was outnumbered, and she'd lost her power cord before Green Lantern had arrived.

Reaching a snap decision, the luminous superwoman surged forward, leaving a short-lived trail of emerald light in her wake. As she drew closer to the battle, a massive green hand emerged from her ring, scooping up the ship sitting in the lake.

"Eat this!" Green Lantern roared, hurling the thing straight at the nearest MP EVA.

The ship proved too large for even the white giant to swallow. Instead, the impromptu missile ended up completely taking its head off in a shower of blood. The decapitated EVA wavered on its feet, then collapsed to the ground, crushing dozens of trees beneath its bulk. The ship went careening off into an unoccupied corner of the Geofront, falling apart as it went.

With that done, the luminous superwoman sent forth another ray of green light from her ring, the end of which quickly took on the same of the plug at the end of an EVA umbilical cable. The construct deftly maneuvered itself into the empty socket in Unit Two's back.

"What the hell is going on?" Asuka wondered aloud as the world around her Evangelion turned green. Even her instruments were going, haywire, she noted. The countdown clock was especially crazy; it actually looked like it was going _up_.

The Second Child was just starting to get concerned about her inability to see a damned thing around her when the light departed as quickly as it had come.

"Whoa," she said.

So far as she could tell from her position, her Unit Two's armor had gone from fire engine red to dark green. More importantly, the timer, which never should've gone above five minutes, was now stating that she had a full ten minutes of operating time left.

Also, it appeared that her EVA had received a few upgrades, she noted, looking appreciatively at Unit Two's new progressive claws.

Out of the corner of her eye, the Second Child spotted Green Lantern flying away from the scene of the battle, but she bore the jade superwoman no ill will for heading elsewhere.

"You know, usually, green really isn't my color," Asuka remarked.

One of the white Evangelions approached her, raising the bulky melee weapon it held high, ready to strike her. Unit Two lashed out at the other titan, easily severing one of its arms from the rest of its body with one stroke. The blade it held, which was huge even by Evangelion standards, fell down onto it, sending it sprawling. Capitalizing on its moment of weakness, Unit Two tore into its abdomen, unleashing a shower of gore as its internal organs were sent tumbling out.

"In this case, though, I'll make an exception!" Asuka shouted.

"There, hopefully that will let Asuka hold on until Shinji can get here and into Unit One," Green Lantern said to herself as she headed for the pyramid.

_"Power levels now down to—"_

"Ring, I _don't_ want to know!" the superwoman barked, cutting it off.

_"Engaging silent mode."_

That wasn't what she'd asked it to do, but she figured it was good enough. She had a feeling that everything would only get worse before it got better, anyway, so maybe she didn't want status reports.

"Ring, point me the way to Terminal Dogma," she ordered.

A single spark of green light burst forth from her power ring and started to lead the way. Green Lantern flew after it, barreling past the group of shocked looking NERV security personnel standing guard by one of the main doors. She noted grimly how ill-prepared they were to deal with the kind of assault that the JSSDF had mounted but kept going, knowing everything might be for naught if she didn't get to the deepest part of NERV as soon as possible.

Maintaining her absurd pace and simply blowing past everyone she encountered in the halls, Green Lantern followed her little spark (which she decided had to be the best GPS in the known universe). In only moments, she found herself standing before the elevator that led down to Terminal Dogma.

Finally allowing her feet to touch the ground, Green Lantern stabbed the button to call the elevator.

_"Insert ID card, please."_

"Sure, I have it right here," Green Lantern said, projecting a long, paper-thin beam of light between the elevator doors.

The beam of light then abruptly grew as wide as the frame for the elevator doors, causing them to instantly crumple. Unsurprisingly, the elevator car wasn't there, so Green Lantern found herself looking down at the shaft and the cables. Taking a deep breath, she started to descend into the hidden depths of NERV headquarters.

* * *

Meanwhile, down in Lilith's chamber, or the LCL Production Plant as it was euphemistically named, things were a lot quieter than were up above ground. Up on her massive red cross, the Second Angel continued to slowly bleed her life fluids down in the chamber, and on the concrete island where the cross stood, Gendo Ikari waited.

Considering how he spent more than a decade building toward this moment and had pinned all of his hopes upon it, he looked remarkably calm.

Then the door to the chamber opened, and Rei Ayanami came walking in, wearing her school uniform and a blank expression, as usual.

"So, you came," Gendo smiled. "A wise decision."

Rei said nothing, merely walking up to him silently. The Commander didn't seem perturbed in the least, however.

"I knew you would come and allow me to complete my Scenario," he said, removing his right glove and revealing the embryonic form on the First Angel grafted to his palm. "Now, with you guiding the forces unleashed by the forbidden union of Adam and Lilith, my dreams will finally be realized."

He reached toward her.

Only to have Rei abruptly grab hold of his wrist with an iron grip before he could so much as touch her.

"I did not come to serve my part in your Scenario," she said, her crimson eyes cold and hard.

"Then why?" he demanded.

"I came to tell you that I am not your doll…and that an Amazon does not take kindly to threats," she added, using her free hand to pull open her shirt and reveal the top of the red, blue, and bronze leotard she wore underneath it.

Gendo Ikari responded to revelation that she was Wonder Girl in the last way Rei ever would have expected. He started to chuckle.

It was an unpleasant sound, devoid of warmth or any true mirth. Indeed, the First Child found it so unnerving that she released her hold on him and took a step back, wondering if the knowledge that he wouldn't get what he'd wanted for so long and with such intensity had driven him mad.

Silently, she reminded herself an Amazon never showed fear to the enemy, and that, regardless of his mental state, he was no match for her superhuman strength.

"You truly believed that I didn't know," he said.

It was not a question, so Rei didn't bother answer. She merely got into a defensive stance, readying herself for an attack.

"I've known for some time," Gendo informed her. "But I'm willing to bet that you didn't know about this."

He raised his fist, almost as though he was about to try to punch her, but there was too much distance between them. Rei blinked, confused as to what he was doing.

Then a gold ring appeared on his middle finger.

_"Ahhh!"_ Rei cried out in pain and surprise as yellow light erupted from the ring, washing over her. Though her leotard survived the assault without so much as a tear, the school uniform she'd worn over it was instantly reduced to burnt shreds.

The First Child herself was sent staggering backwards, barely regaining her footing before she went falling into the lake of LCL behind her.

Seizing upon the few seconds it took her to recover, Gendo sent a beam of golden light snaking down to the very bottom of the lake. A moment later it had carried up the Amazon's own unbreakable lasso; Rei was sure she'd had it in her apartment just the previous night, but Gendo must have taken it from her home since then. Before the stunned superwoman could react, she found her own lasso wrapping itself around her body, binding her tightly.

"No!" she gasped as she struggled fiercely, but it was no use. Against the enchanted rope, even the might of the Wonder Girl was useless.

"You should have gone alone with the Scenario, Rei, because I _never_ make empty threats," Gendo said, projecting a sphere of yellow light around her. "But if you will not play your part, then I will have new Rei that will."

* * *

"Okay, kid, here we are," the lead Section Two agent said as the black sedan pulled into a spot in one of the NERV base's parking garages.

It had been a surprisingly uneventful drive, considering that chaos that was rapidly unfolding outside, but Shinji didn't think his nerves could've been more frayed if the detail of black suits with him had had to fight through a squad of JSSDF infantry to get him here.

Jumping out of the car and still clutching the hat box close to him, Shinji ran as fast as his legs would carry him to the entrance to the base proper, followed by the Section Two agents. A pair of extremely nervous looking guards wearing red berets were stationed by the door.

"Excuse me," Shinji said, stopping short in front of them, "do you know where Mi…where Green Lantern is?"

The two guards traded a surprised look before one of them answered. "Yeah, according to reports she burst in a few minutes ago and then barged down into Terminal Dogma. How did you know—?"

"Terminal Dogma! Got it! Thanks!" Shinji said, pushing past the two of them and rushing into the base before they could react.

"Hey!" one of the Section Two guards shouted. "Get back here, kid! You need to get to the cages!"

Shinji ignored them. The two agents gave chase, but their broader frames ensured that they had a more difficult time of pushing past the pair of confused NERV Security guards, giving the Third Child a precious few extra seconds.

It was a good thing, too, because he was most definitely going to need them. The agents had longer legs than the EVA pilot, and seemed to be in better shape than he was, too. The distance between them rapidly started to shrink once the two men in the black suits had finally succeeded in bulling their way through the door.

Reaching an elevator, Shinji jammed the button to call the car, and to his immense relief, the doors immediately swung open. Getting inside, he slapped the button for the lowest floor in Central Dogma, then started repeatedly pressing the door close button.

"Come on! Come on!" he hissed as he watched the two agents rushing toward him while the elevator doors swung closed again at a torturously slow pace. It would only take them a few more seconds to reach him, and then the game would be up.

One of the agents _leaped_ toward him…

And slammed right into the elevator doors, face first. They had sealed just a heartbeat before he'd reached them.

Shinji couldn't help but wince in sympathy. That _had_ to have hurt.

The counter inside the elevator started to tick down the floors. Clutching the hat box to his chest, Shinji leaned against the elevator wall and panted heavily, more from terror than from exertion.

Belatedly, it occurred to him that it would probably be child's play for one of the techs in the command center to stop the elevator so Section Two could come and collect them at his leisure. He supposed he could press the emergency stop button and get out now, but he didn't like his chances of making it to Terminal Dogma, that sub-sub-basement of NERV that he'd only ever heard about before, if he attempted to take the stairs. Someone would probably intercept him. He would just have to hope that everyone in the command center was too occupied by everything else that was happening to get to it in time.

Of course, Shinji knew why Section Two wanted to take him to the EVA cages; it didn't exactly take a genius to figure out that they wanted him to sortie against the attacking forces.

_And I will…eventually,_ Shinji thought guiltily.

He knew he should be up there, getting into Unit One so he could help Asuka, but he wouldn't—he _couldn't _—just abandon Misato, not when it was his fault that she was rushing off with some kind of handicap on her powers. Besides, he trusted her; if she was ignoring the forces attacking NERV to bolt down to Terminal Dogma, then he assumed that something extremely important was happening down there.

He trusted Asuka, too. He believed that she could hold out until he could deliver the lantern to Misato and get into Unit One.

"Please hang on, Asuka," he whispered. "I'll be there soon, I promise."

* * *

"God, who did they get to design this place? Count Dracula?" Green Lantern wondered aloud as she flew through the dim, dreary halls of Terminal Dogma.

She had expected the place to be even more sparsely decorated and utilitarian than the rest of NERV headquarters (which was very sparsely decorated and utilitarian indeed). She hadn't expected it to look like someone had _deliberately_ made it as creepy as possible.

She also hadn't expected it to be so damn _huge,_ either.

_It would just figure if the world came to an end because I freaking got lost,_ Green Lantern thought with irritation. _At least Ritsuko would get to die laughing her ass off._

"Perhaps drowning?"

Green Lantern came to a halt upon hearing another person's words echoing through the cavernous section of the base. Holding her breath, the jade superwoman pricked her ears and fervently hoped that someone spoke again.

"It would take far longer than you expect."

_That_ was Rei, Green Lantern realized, moving in the direction that the voice had come from.

A second later she burst into a huge room that looked like a laboratory with a dash of torture chamber thrown in to give it that mad scientist feel. The standard scientific equipment was strewn around, but there was an examination table near the center of the floor where a blue-haired girl was both tied up with a long golden rope and strapped down by a trio of heavy leather restraints. Next to the table was a whole variety of instruments that Green Lantern was quite sure didn't belong in any lab where science was practiced in an ethical manner.

"How do you kill a girl who can withstand—?" Gendo Ikari abruptly stopped speaking as he realized that he and his captive were not alone.

Green Lantern almost didn't notice him at first, too shocked by what she was seeing. At first she'd thought that the girl bound to the table was Rei. Then she had thought that the prisoner was Wonder Girl.

Finally, she realized that she was _both_.

_Rei is __**Wonder Girl**__?! How the hell did I never figure that out?!_ Green Lantern wondered.

Then long-ago training finally kicked in, and the emerald superwoman ceased to focus on the blue-haired girl at the exclusion of everything else in the room. She instantly spotted Commander Ikari standing nearby, looking vaguely annoyed.

Green Lantern raised her fist, pointing her ring at him. "I don't know what exactly you're doing here, you bastard," she said. "But it ends right now. Surrender peacefully and I promise not to hit you too hard."

Even as she said these words, Green Lantern was already thinking three steps ahead. She could easily restrain Gendo and leave him here until she had the time to figure out what she was ultimately going to do with him. Once that chore was done, freeing Rei would be simplicity in itself, and the two of them could head topside to help NERV deal with the threat of the JSSDF. If Rei was sufficient to help Units One and Two deal with the EVA Series, then she shouldn't have too much difficulty routing the more conventional forces, and—

"I will never surrender to you," Gendo said coldly, "especially not when I'm so close to my goal."

Green Lantern frowned. Though part of her was incredulous, she reminded herself to be wary. Ikari _had_ somehow managed to make Wonder Girl his prisoner, after all.

"I wasn't giving you an option, Commander," she said. "Surrender, or else—"

"Or else _what?_"

Before she could answer, golden light flared around the Commander. A halo of light came into being around him as yellow flames washed over his form, transforming his NERV uniform. In a second the familiar garment was gone, replaced by a black and yellow number that was similar and yet very, very different to the one Green Lantern herself wore.

The jade superwoman's eyes widened. Gendo Ikari had a lantern power ring. Gendo Ikari had a _yellow_ lantern power ring.

This just gotten a _lot_ more complicated.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** So here we are at last, we've reached the point where it all goes down. Next up, the fight I'm sure you all knew was coming eventually: Green Lantern Misato versus Sinestro Corpsman Gendo. Place your bets, people.

In case anyone's wondering, the idea for Unit Two's upgrade came from an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, where Guy and a pre-rogue Sinestro turn Batman's usual duds into a green armor/space suit. Of course, said new outfit acted just like a GL ring for Batman, which struck me as more than a little odd, since they made it for him because they refused to let him use a GL ring himself. So I altered that bit of it.

Anyway, as always, thanks to my readers and reviewers, and to my beta reader as well. Come back next time for the dramatic conclusion.

* * *

Omake

False Hopes

"What's going on?" Shinji demanded, even before Misato had quite finished.

It was a good thing, too, because his guardian was in motion the second she hung up the phone. "The JSSDF is moving toward the city. They're going to attack NERV," she answered as she headed toward her room.

"Wh-What?! But why?" Shinji asked, following her.

"Damned if I know, but this looks like a job for Green Lantern!" Misato proclaimed, as emerald light flared around her, transforming her into the luminous superwoman.

"…did you know that I knew you were Green Lantern?" Shinji asked. He was a little surprised that she'd just revealed that to him, to put it mildly.

Green Lantern shrugged. "I just assumed that you'd figured out that me and Asuka are superwomen by now," she said. "I mean, you'd have to be pretty dense to miss that!" she chuckled.

"Yeah, I guess so," Shinji said with a smile. Then he hesitated. "Wait, Asuka is—?"

"But I'm not sure even I can do this alone," Green Lantern mused aloud. "Oh! Maybe I could use a deputy!"

"Oh, how about me?" Shinji asked eagerly. "I'd do it. It would be great if I get superpowers just _once_ without some horrible or humiliating side effect! Oh, please, Misato, just this once? In this omake near the end of the story?"

"Hmm…"

Green light streamed out of the emerald superwoman's ring, coalescing around Shinji and granting the Third Child his own Green Lantern outfit.

"Cool!" he exclaimed, levitating about a foot off the floor.

"Nah, making a deputy is just silly," Misato decided. Instantly, Shinji returned to normal, collapsing to the floor. "You do look cute in that getup, though."

"You people all suck, you know that?" Shinji grumbled.


End file.
